Since the health crisis, telecommuting has been widely deployed in France and Europe. Telecommuting now accounts for almost 25% of all employees, who discovered telecommuting during the first confinement. 71.6% of teleworkers said they would like to telework more often.
Over 60% of them also felt that teleworking enabled them to manage stress better and improve their concentration. Finally, over 58% felt that teleworking guaranteed a better work-life balance.
Today, around a third of employees telework. By 2020, the average trend is for just over 3 days of teleworking per week.
Because telecommuting doesn’t just benefit our professional lives. By working from home, we contribute to a 69% reduction in the volume of travel compared to a day spent at the workplace. A far from neutral observation when we consider the impact of our home-to-work journeys on the environment, whether in terms of greenhouse gas emissions or air quality.
Another benefit of telecommuting is energy savings. This is demonstrated by the energy balance of teleworking, based on data collected from a dozen ministerial buildings and public establishments, as well as from around a hundred teleworkers, in France.
Electricity savings in offices due to the absence of some teleworking employees (lighting, computers) appear to be relatively low. However, when telecommuting is accompanied by office closure for at least one day, energy savings (heating, ventilation, etc.) can reach 20-30%.
More good news. These energy savings have little impact at home. The “rebound effect” associated with an increase in energy consumption in employees’ homes does not exceed 3.5% to 7%.
Telecommuting avoids the need to travel, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.
The best tips for reducing consumption when teleworking are as follows:
– Internet browsers constantly refresh pages that have been left open. To do this, they use web servers that consume a lot of energy. It’s also a good idea to close unused tabs and delete cookies regularly to lighten the load on computer servers.
– compress the size of attachments or send them via temporary deposit sites;
target your recipients (multiplying the number of recipients of an e-mail by 10 means multiplying its environmental impact by 4);
create a signature without image or logo for internal exchanges and well-established contacts;
use the company’s instant messaging system, if available, to chat with a colleague rather than sending an e-mail.
– Online videos account for 60% of the world’s data flow and are responsible for almost 1% of global CO2 emissions!
We can limit our footprint by :
Deactivating automatic playback in the application settings, for example;
preferring downloaded music or streaming audio to music videos;
choosing to watch videos in lower resolution (low definition rather than high definition).
Don’t forget to switch off your computer completely when you’re not using it. Don’t leave it on standby (even for long periods) or plugged in, as this will continue to consume electricity unnecessarily.
English