New report from Phoenix Group and MoreThanNow highlights steps organisations can take to make the option of working from home more environmentally friendly

As many organisations across the UK look to shift to a more agile working model, a new report from Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, and behavioural science practice MoreThanNow, shines a light on the climate considerations of working from home as part of a hybrid model.

Working From Home: The Sustainability Question report details how employee behaviour – both in relation to work and lifestyle – can have major environmental impacts, especially when aggregated across organisations, cities, and nations. While working from home (WFH) reduces the need for high-carbon activities, like business travel by air and commuting to work by car, these benefits may be offset by other behaviours, such as increased use of consumer electronics, higher home energy consumption, and increased non-work travel. Phoenix believes it is vital that organisations take the environmental aspects of home working into account as they develop their new models, to ensure they are sustainable.

The report highlights several simple steps that employers can take to help their employees limit their environmental impact when working from home, and potentially save on their household bills too.

Sara Thompson, Group HR Director, Phoenix Group comments: “It’s clear that some form of hybrid working will continue for many organisations, even when restrictions are completely lifted, and offices are able to open to all employees again. Many companies are thinking about their own sustainability goals currently, and this research highlights the importance of factoring in the impact of employees working from home as part of that. Organisations and employees adapted to home working incredibly quickly last year, so there is nothing to stop a move to more sustainable home working practices happening quickly too, and this will be vitally important for our future.”

The report focuses on five behavioural areas (technology, food, waste, utilities and travel), and highlights small actions that organisations can adopt to make the future of work and home working more environmentally friendly.

Highlights for organisations from the report:

• Save energy, cut costs on utility bills and lower emissions by pre-programming electronic devices to eco-mode or switching them to standby, “sleep mode”, or “hibernate” after a pre-specified time (e.g. 2 hours).
• Reduce cloud usage by encouraging employees to send fewer emails – sticking to a single email trail, and grouping conversations together will help this.
• Reduce screen time by utilising cost-effective and easily available tools, such as reminders and feedback about screen time-use, to get people to monitor their usage and make cutbacks where appropriate.
• Encourage more sustainable food consumption by setting goals and using planning prompts. For example, organising activities such as cook-alongs carried out in tandem with communications to encourage staff to go meatless one day a week, during the work week or at lunchtime.
• Foster sustainable practices by sharing creative communications that provide advice and ideas for employees. For example, sharing dinner recipes with suggestions for how to repurpose leftovers for lunch or make dishes from unused items.
• Influence behaviours by sharing peer comparisons and celebrating progress – such as informing staff about how much energy they use compared to their average neighbour to encourage them to decrease consumption. Similarly, introducing acknowledgment of progress toward a lower carbon footprint may encourage employees on the right track to continue to be mindful of their usage.
• Reduce emissions from business related international air travel by meeting virtually rather than in-person. Make employees aware before booking a business trip of what that trip means in terms of their carbon footprint and where it would place them in comparison to their colleagues.

While these actions sound simple, the report places a heavy emphasis on careful design and testing. The research team from MoreThanNow and the London School of Economics urge organisations not to blindly follow these suggestions as ‘hints and tips’, but to think about what will work for their and employees and carefully evaluate the impact of their interventions.

Sara continues: “At Phoenix, we’ve been listening to our colleagues, gaining insight and thinking creatively about how we will work differently in the future, in light of the climate challenge we are responding to along with everything we have learnt from this terrible pandemic. To deliver on our purpose of helping people secure a life of possibilities we’re putting sustainability at the heart of the business and this includes working in ways that make us healthier and happier, striking the right balance around where we work, when we work, and how often we travel. The Working From Home report outlines the real potential of agile working lives for people and planet. We’re excited as a business to be using these behavioural insights to shape how we create our truly hybrid and sustainable business, and incorporate them into our future ways of working.”

James Elfer, Founder, MoreThanNow adds: “It’s easy to forget that the shift to Hybrid Working is happening in the middle of a climate crisis, but the trend will influence how we travel, the technology we use, the waste we generate, and the energy, food and water we consume in our homes. Organisations cannot claim a commitment to the environment without designing sustainability into their vision for the future of work. Our report offers a roadmap for action for responsible employers, and we thank Phoenix Group for leading from the front.”

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Enquiries

Sarah Muir Lansons 07837 537937
sarahm@lansons.com

Rachel Esland Phoenix Group 07892 705093
rachel_esland@standardlife.com

Notes to editors Methodology

Working From Home: The Sustainability Question report was conducted by MoreThanNow, with collaboration from LSE Consulting. The report was conducted in partnership with Phoenix Group and BT. The full report can be found here: Discover sustainable remote working solutions

Phase 2 of the programme will see a consortium of employers experimenting with the innovative ideas from this first report, and sharing what they find, to help all organisations build a more sustainable future of work.

About Phoenix Group

Phoenix Group is the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business with c.14 million customers and £338 billion of assets under administration across both our Heritage and Open businesses.

Our Heritage business, where we are the market-leader, is focused on the safe and efficient management of insurance policies. The Heritage business comprises products that are no longer actively marketed to customers, and where we have stepped in as the custodian of these policies. We have built this business through the consolidation of over 100 legacy insurance brands.

Our Open business comprises products that are actively marketed to new and existing customers and has five separate business units. Our Workplace pensions and Customer Savings & Investments (“CS&I”) units operate under the Standard Life brand and manufacture long-term savings and retirement products to support people saving for their future.

The Retirement Solutions unit within Open includes both vesting annuities and our Bulk Purchase Annuity (“BPA”) business, where we acquire annuities and deliver the financial stability required to secure pensions currently provided by corporates.

The Open business comprises our market leading brand – “SunLife” – which sells a range of financial products specifically for the over 50s market and our European business unit which spans Ireland, Germany and the International Bond segment in the UK and operates under the Standard Life brand.

About MoreThanNow

MoreThanNow bring behavioural science to workplace culture and change. Together with our academic collaborators, we’re pioneering an experimental approach to the future of work in the wake of Covid 19. Our partners include BT, Ericsson, Novartis, Nationwide Building Society and Citibank, and we collaborate with institutions including London Business School, University College London and the London School of Economics.