6 Ways to Make Your Home Office Eco-Friendly and Sustainable

Did you know data saved both on your computer and in the cloud contributes to global pollution? It’s true! To celebrate Earth Day, our Kforce family cleaned out our digital desks—deleting the files, emails, pictures, videos and other data we no longer needed—and invite you to do the same. By routinely deleting unneeded data, we save the electricity required to store and cool these files within data centers, reducing our overall (digital) carbon footprint.

Getting work done from the comfort of your home often requires more than just a laptop. From second monitors, to printers, to your office phone charger, it takes a lot of electricity to keep productivity flowing. Ensure you’re only using energy when you’re powering through your work day by plugging in your devices to a smart power strip, which can detect when devices are on standby and cut power off to them when not in use, reports the Department of Energy.

Want to take things a step further than a smart power strip? If you know you’ll be out of office for more than two hours, you can shut down your computer completely rather than put it into sleep mode to save extra energy, according to Duke Energy.

Natural light is not only good for your health, it’s good for the environment, too. Opting to open your blinds in lieu of turning on lamps and lights can have a big impact in decreasing the amount of electricity used over the course of a week, according to Duke Energy.

Instead of adjusting the thermostat a few degrees up or down, could you put on a sweater to warm up or close the blinds if it’s getting too hot? Aside from helping the environment, doing so could help your wallet too, according to the Department of Energy.

Throwing in a load of laundry between meetings? Washing your clothes on the cold water setting will save up to 90% of the energy required to run your washing machine. Before making the switch, ENERGY STAR strongly suggests using a detergent formula specifically designed for cold water use.