Remote working
The idea of remote working was something not many people would have thought possible before the rapid advances of the Information Age.
These advances coincided with the birth and rise of millennials throughout the 80’s, the 90’s, the 00’s and are still advancing today as we move more from the Information Age to the Experience Age.
Remote working has a long list of benefits, some of them being:
Increasing productivity
Lower stress levels
Drives worker efficiency.
Cost benefits around travelling to and from the workplace.
While all of these benefits are a bonus the main gain is to be had from its environmental impacts, or in other words the lesser impact it has on the environment.
One of the benefits come from the removal of commuting to and from the workplace
In the United States alone, commuting contributes greatly to the second-largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
The use of cars and other vehicles to and from the workplace greatly increases the number of pollutants being released into the air, whereas working remotely from your home or a cafe close to home can decrease these emissions greatly.
The Environmental Protection Agency once said “The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector.”(1)
Another benefit comes from reduced energy consumption.
While working remotely can lead to an increase in energy consumption at home it also causes less of a need for office space where generally a lot of equipment and machines are turned on but goes unused throughout the day.(2)
One more positive impact is less waste being produced
When working from home people generally tend to use less paper and create less waste than when in an office environment. When in an office you might be more inclined to print out a document you wish to show someone whereas when you’re working remotely you can just send a digital copy.
You also produce less waste when it comes to your lunch as you are less likely to go get a coffee and use a disposable cup or buy food that is wrapped in some one-time-use paper.
All of these environmental impacts resulting from remote working is something that we know already relates directly to millennials, statistics from a survey done last year show that:
85 Percent of Millennials Want Full-Time Remote Opportunities
35 Percent of Millennials Would Leave Their Job for Full-Time Remote Work
86 Percent Said Productivity is Higher Working Remotely
84 Percent of Millennials Want Better Work/Life Balance
82 Percent Expressed Higher Loyalty to a Company with a Remote Work Program (3)
There is no stopping Generation Y’s want for the the remote workforce revolution and with the environment becoming a bigger and more important issue, companies will have no choice but to take notice.
References
(1) https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/telecommuting-sustainability-how-telecommuting-is-a-green-job/
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