Reducing CO2 emissions not only protects the environment, but also your company's wallet. There is a lot of potential here in personnel development: find out in this article about simple ways to make continuing education and training more climate-friendly.
Whether due to higher environmental awareness or rising CO2 taxes: companies want to save CO2 more than ever and thus improve their environmental footprint. In some areas, a lot is already being done here, for example in active CO2 reduction in industrial processes or in switching from company cars to company bikes or job tickets.
The Corona pandemic has also made it clear where further savings potential lies: in the home office! Hybrid working models can save 12.2 megatonnes of CO2 annually. Every German employee working from home saves up to 700 kg of CO2 annually through eliminated commuting times and digital data storage. This corresponds to five flights from Berlin to London.
A clear signal to search for climate-friendly concepts not only in day-to-day work, but also in the further training of employees. After all, over 7.4 million people participated in occupational continuing education in 2019 alone. So there is a huge CO2 savings potential for companies here.
Designing further training to be environmentally conscious and at the same time efficient can be achieved with a few simple adjustments:
Save CO2 by using less paper in training courses
A single sheet of office paper causes 5g of CO2. That doesn't sound like much at first, but: quantity makes a difference! In many continuing education courses, classic handouts, questionnaires, or textbooks are still used – a lot of paper adds up!
Let's assume that each of the 7.4 million training participants received 5 sheets of paper, some more, some less. That makes 37 million sheets! This means that continuing education already causes 185 million grams of CO2, which is 185,000 kg of CO2 just in paper - and additionally produces a whole lot of paper waste.
Tip 1: Switch from classic office paper to recycled paper. This saves about 30% of CO2 for training materials. In addition, duplex printers that print paper on both sides are worthwhile – savings: another 50%. Additionally, you should avoid pretty plastic covers for training manuals (less plastic is always better!)
Overview: This is how much CO2 paper consumes according to the sustainability calculator / Own illustration
Tip 2: Switch to digital training materials. "No paper at all" reduces this item by 100%, avoids waste, and also saves employees both carrying it around and searching for the paper documents.
Documents in PDF or Word format can easily be sent by email. The excuse "only in paper form does everyone really get it!" is outdated: since 95% of 25- to 44-year-olds use email, email today is an extremely reliable way to reach employees and training participants. And let's be honest: how often have you looked at the handout after a training session?
Of course, the manufacturing and use of devices also cause CO2. For a laptop, it's on average about 250 kg of CO2. However, several million pages can be saved on a hard drive, or you can save them centrally in a cloud. And a laptop lasts on average up to five years. In addition, most people already own a device. Only in very few cases do new devices need to be purchased for digital training materials. So in the long term, it's a big saving.
Save CO2 by traveling less for continuing education
Tip 1: Hybrid working models save CO2 – hybrid learning models do too! Hybrid learning and blended learning reduce CO2 simply because fewer training participants have to travel for a course.
In hybrid models, training takes place both digitally and on-site; participants and companies can choose for themselves whether the trip and the high CO2 emissions are worth it. Blended learning specifically shifts learning content that learners can work through on their own into online courses. In this way, depending on implementation, you can reduce travel by 20% to 90%.
Comparison: Blended learning and hybrid learning reduce classroom times and CO2-intensive travel for continuing education. / Own illustration
Tip 2: Is travel for continuing education unavoidable? Here, too, you can easily save CO2 using well-known methods: avoid participants traveling individually by car (152 g CO2 / km). Rely on the train instead (50-80 g CO2 / km) or carpooling. We probably don't even need to start on short-haul flights.
For large groups of employees, for example for mandatory regular company training, a coach bus can also be quite worthwhile (36 g CO2 / km).
Conclusion: Companies can enormously improve their CO2 balance in continuing education!
In summary, there are 4 ways to easily save CO2 during further training in companies. In this way, you can both reduce costs and increase environmental friendliness:
Use recycled paper, print necessary documents double-sided, or switch to digital learning materials.
Use hybrid or blended learning formats to reduce classroom times. Rely on CO2-efficient vehicles for necessary travel.
CO2 potential of e-learning: no paper, no travel
The greatest potential for the future, looking purely at the CO2 balance, probably lies in e-learning. For purely digital training, no paper is needed, as all materials are provided in online courses. In combination with webinars or personal support via video conferencing tools like Zoom, travel times can also be completely eliminated.
Many companies are already using home office and e-learning today due to the pandemic situation. But the CO2 balance strongly supports continuing this trend. And initial findings in the general sustainability debate also show: distance learning is the most sustainable form of education!
E-learning in companies will not achieve a "perfect zero balance" either: the manufacture of computers and electricity generation will continue to produce CO2. However, the digitalization of continuing education is a big step in the right direction: the best possible environmental friendliness in companies!
