How to achieve sustainability in your digital workday
Thinking about sustainability between endless emails and countless calls is something that doesn’t occur to many people. Luckily, that’s what we’re here for! This is how you save electricity in your digital workday and do something good for the environment.
There are three reasons why it’s worthwhile to check your daily work routine for sustainability.
Firstly, it’s good for you. For yourself, for your team, for your sense of purpose and, of course, for the environment.
Secondly, sustainability has long since become a powerful sales argument. Customers prefer sustainable companies. Taking responsibility is sexy.
Thirdly, a sustainable working environment is attractive to young talent. The issue is particularly close to their hearts – after all, they will have to cope with the planet’s state of health for a long time to come.
So where do you start? If you are serious about becoming more sustainable, you need to learn to look at your work environment from this perspective. Once you get into the habit of doing this, you will discover things left and right that you can change.
Increasing awareness of the issue
Before you are ready to adopt a new behaviour, you must first understand why it’s better than the old one. You can increase your awareness of the issue through
- documentaries (e.g. Tomorrow, Minimalism, The Green Lie)
- books (e.g. Cradle to Cradle, Green Giants, Scale)
- blog posts (e.g. this one)
- own research
- reading on 😉
As your knowledge grows, you become more aware of the issue and see the need more clearly. This is the why. It is followed by the how – principles and values that help you stay on course.
Here are three examples of principles:
Efficiency
Find the efficient, avoid the inefficient. Use products and services that consume as little energy and material resources as possible. Take a close look at the status quo. Not everything has to be changed – but you don’t know that until you examine it.
Sincerity
Sustainability must be sincere. There is enough greenwashing out there. Don’t rest on your laurels when you’ve banned plastic bottles from the office. Take a good look at your electrical appliances, tools and practices. Change them where it makes sense.
Inquisitiveness
If you’re not careful, sustainability efforts will turn you into a gloomy moper. Don’t see only the bad. Turn the project into engaging, exciting research. Focus more on the solutions than the problems.
Tips for more digital sustainability in the office
Save energy
- Turn off the video in calls. This will reduce the data transfer and carbon footprint of your calls by up to 90%.
- Use a green electricity provider. The production of solar and wind power is particularly low in CO2 emissions. When you use green electricity, you are helping to reduce pollution.
- Make your mailbox sustainable. One email produces between 0.3 and 25g of CO2. Save unnecessary mails, compress attachments, avoid images in the signature. Here we take a closer look at this topic.
- Don’t stream videos at work. Sure, work is annoying sometimes. If you want to distract yourself for a moment, do it. Just don’t do it with online video content – it consumes tons of energy.
- Turn off unused devices. Whether it’s during a break or after work, if you’re not going to use your electrical appliances for a long time, turn them off completely.
- Use energy-saving browsers. Google Chrome uses the most energy. Opera and Edge perform better.
- Use LED lamps. LED lamps consume up to 90% less electricity than conventional light bulbs. This is not a new finding – but many offices still use bulbs.
- Design your own website sustainably. Sustainable web design reduces the CO2 emissions of your website by up to 70%. Here you can have your website checked for free.
Not digital, but still helpful:
- Green commuting. If circumstances allow, cycle or take public transport to work. Especially in summer, cycling is fun.
- Glass instead of plastic. Many companies provide their employees with free drinks. Nice! It’s best to use either glass bottles or vending machines.
- Bean-to-cup coffee machines instead of capsules. Whether they are made of bioplastic or aluminium, coffee capsules always cause additional waste. Coffee machines that brew the liquid gold directly from beans or powder are best.
- Promote remote working. Working from home does not cause traffic emissions. It also saves on to-go products like coffee cups and plastic packaging from the supermarket.
- Buy used technology. It doesn’t always have to be brand new business computers – second-hand equipment is also sufficient for many normal office tasks. On top of that, they’re cheaper.
- Sell used technology. The same applies to equipment that you want to get rid of. Instead of dumping them in the electronic scrapyard, you can sell them on second-hand portals like refurbed or Back Market.
Don’t be afraid of change
Dare to be more sustainable – it pays off! You save money, reduce your carbon footprint, you do something for the planet and your own conscience. Where do you start? And do you have any other ideas? Tell us at info@jut-so.de <3
