RHUB remote access appliance helps employees work at home

With remote working slowly but steadily making its way into the hearts of the practices of businesses and companies all over the United States, much has been discussed how will remote work and cloud computing in general affect energy consumption and how will it change our relationship with the environment.

There are many arguments that defend the adoption of remote work and among them those that state that remote work will have a big impact on the reduction of the carbon footprint, mainly because of the prominent reduction of commuting and business travelling.

In 2008, the American Electronics Association has estimated that 1.35 billion gallons of gas would be annually saved if every employee, with the option of doing so, would work remotely 1.6 days per week. This would translate into less 26 billion pounds of carbon dioxide being released every year into the atmosphere.

Still there are those who claim, Greenpeace among them, that though it is true that remote work will reduce carbon footprint associated with travelling, it will exponentially grow the energy consumption of data centers, with computers becoming one of the main sources of global ICT emissions by 2020.

However, a report by the Carbon Disclosure Project has shown that companies that adopt cloud computing will reduce their energy consumption. The report says that these companies can save annually $12.3 billion in energy, which is equivalent to an annual carbon dioxide reduction of 200 million oil barrels.

But remote work contributes in other ways to a greener and cleaner environment which are not so immediately perceived by the people, like how electronic documents are substituting paper which is one of the main causes of deforestation, which in itself has a big impact in global warming. Or how virtual offices do not require physical space and furniture and extra equipment. 

In the end remote working will have a deep impact by driving companies and businesses into greener and cleaner practices, and the soon this adoption takes place the better. Among the best remote working solutions available today in the market are RHUB’s 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliances, which are not only between the safest but also among the greenest.