The Covid 19 pandemic has forced many of us to change the way we live our lives. Many of us have been fortunate enough to be able to continue working as normal, but others have been forced to make previsions to work from home. Whether this was simply to provide a safe working environment to reduce the risk to ourselves or others or whether it was to enable us to work more flexible hours so that we could provide childcare and home schooling, a trip to the home office is now likely a part of everybody’s day-to-day lives.
However, while the whole world slowed down as we put measures in place to protect each other, climate change and the impact we have on the environment didn’t. Yes, less commuting means less pollution, businesses that were forced to close or reduce their activities saw a drop on their carbon output, and the severe decline in air travel has meant that pollution from air traffic is at an all time low; but the world still suffers from the effects of climate change and more needs to be done to ensure a safer and brighter future.
Although many of us now work from home as part of our regular routine, whether it’s full time or once or twice a week, we still need to think of the impact that our businesses have on the environment. It’s likely that, while workplaces may have seen a fall in energy consumption, our employees have seen an increase in the energy they use at home. Therefore, we thought it might be a good idea to equip you with some energy saving ideas for the home office.
Turn Your Home Office into a Green Office
LED Lighting
While LED light bulbs may be slightly more expensive than traditional incandescent bulbs, they last longer and use up to 40% less energy.
Smart Power
Smart power strips can be used to switch off all your office appliances when they are not needed. It can also provide features such as a schedule to switch on or off lights and power when they are needed or not needed.
Eco Friendly Office Supplies
Home offices still need supplies. Making sure you have green office supplies at home, such as recycled paper, pencils and refillable pens, can help you to reduce your negative impact on the environment.
Cut Down on Paper Usage
Try taking notes electronically or use scrap bits of paper and avoid printing as much as possible. If you do need to print something, use recycled paper and print on both sides.
The Five R’s
Refuse. Reduce. Reuse. Repurpose. Recycle.
Ditch Your Screensaver
While screensavers might look nice and help prolong the life of your computer screen, they still consume power. Your computer needs to process them and your monitor needs to display them. Instead, change your settings so that your computer goes to sleep or hibernates when you are not using it instead. That way, it will only be consuming power when it’s in use and reduces wastage.
By maintaining good practices, regardless of whether we are at home or in the office, we can help protect the environment. We are all in this together, we only have one planet Earth and we all need to do our utmost to protect it.
Global Office Supplies is on a mission to help companies go green. We can help you reduce your impact on the environment by supplying green office supplies, print management and recycling services.
Get in touch today to find out more about how we can help your office go green.
