Statistics show that the number of people working from home is on the increase, and for me it’s a no brainer really. Working from home has so many benefits including the complete elimination of the daily commute, being able to work at your most productive times, and being able to save on child care costs among other things.
Working from home provides the perfect opportunity for you to create an eco friendly home office to work from, which keeps your running costs down and reduces your carbon footprint.
Many people who work from home find that in order to maintain the same productivity level of their office based counterparts they need to create a completely separate work space from their living space. One of the easiest and most eco friendly ways to do this is with a log cabin. Prefabricated log cabins make great home office buildings, and depending on their size you don’t usually need planning permission so you can have one erected within a week.
The timber used in making a log cabin is usually sourced from sustainable forests; make sure you check for this before purchasing. Timber is also 40% more effective at retaining heat than bricks or blocks. You’ll be able to use your log cabin home office all year round as it won’t cost a fortune to heat in the winter.
To increase the eco-friendliness of your home office you could consider using some less conventional and more eco friendly ways to heat and power it. Solar panels are an incredibly green way in which to power your home office. After the initial cost of having solar panels fitted they will start to pay for themselves in terms of reduced electricity bills, and they’re usually fairly low maintenance.
Using energy-saving light bulbs in your home office is another way to use less energy and keep your electricity bill down. Energy-saving light bulbs tend to last much longer than traditional light bulbs too so you’ll save money in the fact that you’ll have to replace your light bulbs much less often. The impact on the environment is that you’ll be disposing of fewer light bulbs which would potentially sit in landfill.
Most homes and offices these days have access to good recycling services so there’s no excuse for throwing paper and glass away with the regular trash. Ensure that your recycling habits spill over into your home office to keep it as green as possible.
If your prefabricated home office has room for its own toilet then you could consider installing an eco friendly compost toilet. A compost toilet works by separating urine and faeces and turning it into compost. These kinds of toilet don’t require flushing with water so they’re much friendlier to the environment; and eventually you’ll have enough compost to fertilise the plants and flowers in your garden. Contrary to what you might think compost toilets don’t smell, and can in fact be installed inside homes.
For the full eco friendly home office, try to buy second hand office furniture. A desk can be given a new lease of life by sanding it down and re-varnishing it. Look out for offices that are going out of business as sometimes they sell off their old equipment such as filing cabinets; thus saving you money and preventing them from ending up in landfill sites.
