Introducing a flexible working policy helps your business be eco-friendly

Introducing a flexible working policy helps your business be eco-friendly

The world of work is continually changing, and flexible working is now standard across many industries. Timewise, an organisation which promotes flexible working, recently released a report into the UK’s workforce. The report found that 63% of full-time employees already work flexibly in some way.

It’s not just employees who have parental or carer responsibilities who want flexible working, younger workers also place it at the top of their wish-list too.

Flexible working not only benefits your employees, it also has unexpected business benefits too – it can help you be ‘greener’, which is great for the planet!

Here is how flexible working can help reduce your business’ carbon footprint:

  1. Fewer employees commuting to work means less CO2 emissions from cars, vans or motorbikes
  2. Fewer employees in the office mean you can save on energy which is needed to power office equipment and utilities such as computers, lights, air-conditioning or heating
  3. A reduction in energy use and commuting means fewer fossil fuels need to be burned to generate energy or to produce petrol or diesel to power vehicles
  4. In the office, people have a different attitude to printing i.e. they tend to print more. This is because the business is paying for it and not them. If they are working from home, they’re less willing to print large volumes of documents, and therefore less paper and ink is used
  5. Working from home, people tend to make their lunch instead of buying it from a supermarket or grabbing something from a coffeeshop. This results in less plastic being consumed
  6. The more people who work from home, the less office space is needed. Potentially meaning you could move to smaller premises which use less energy
  7. If you move to a fully remote team structure you could find that your printers are stood idle. Instead of paying money to power and maintain these printers, you could be better off by outsourcing your printing needs to a print management firm. Not only could this save you money as they’ll monitor and report on what is being printed, when and by who, but the printers used will be more efficient, meaning less ink and paper is needed to produce quality printed materials

To find out what is involved in outsourcing your printing needs to a print management firm, get in touch using our online enquiry form. A member of our experienced print team will be in touch to talk you through the process and the benefits associated with outsourcing your printing needs.