Want to go green AND save green? Go videoconferencing.

Videoconferencing has become many companies’ preferred meeting method for countless reasons: it’s faster, easier, and saves more money than travelling, especially when it’s only needed for a short time during the day. However, there’s one more advantage to the “virtual meeting” initiative: saving the planet.

Besides its obvious cost cost-related benefits (if you need a refresher on those, please see here), videoconferencing is one of the truly greenest technology on the market. Since its creation, videoconferencing’s primary purpose has been to decrease unnecessary business travel, including distant meetings between employees and/or clients. Although being able to communicate from your respective offices saves companies and individuals both time and money, it also reduces pollution and helps keep the planet clean. Consider this: the average American commutes 18 miles each way to work, and, assuming an average 23.4 miles per gallon in their car, consumes 1.5 gallons of gas per day. This equates to producing over 5,154 pounds of carbon dioxide in just one work week! You can imagine, then, the amount of pollution created by one roundtrip flight or several 2-3 hour car trips per week.

Videoconferencing brings all of the capabilities of a meeting right to you, so your cross-country visits with the corporate office or a new client don’t produce any more energy than what it takes to run your presentation system. Many companies are required to supply the federal, state, or local government with an environmental impact statement outlining their business practices; including videoconferencing capabilities instead of regular business travel further shows your commitment to keeping the environment save and pollutant-free.

Interested to see how your current business plan is impacting the environment (and your bottom line)? Check out the Tandberg Business Advantage Calculator to see what you can save by investing in videoconference technology.

Green A/V technology: saving money and the environment

In recent years, the ‘go green’ concept has revolutionized nearly every industry and has pushed companies to make sometimes drastic changes to their business model, whether it’s adding more eco-friendly products to their offerings or just revamping the way they use waste. Most recently, several of the audio visual industry’s biggest players in lighting, presentation, and wireless communication systems have developed state-of-the-art products and services that help companies decrease their impacts on the environment while still increasing productivity.

One of the largest sources of energy waste for most companies involves their facility lighting. All of us are guilty at one time or another of leaving an empty room’s light on, and many office spaces are actually “overlit”, leading to increased energy costs, higher demands on local energy supplies, and in turn an increase in carbon emissions as more energy is created. Lighting controls integrator Lutron Electronics, for example, created the EcoSystem line that includes occupant sensors to determine when lights are no longer needed in a space, personal lighting controls that allow employees to change their light settings from their PC, and daylight harvesting software that adjusts electric lighting based upon the amount of sunlight in the room.

Draper Inc., a solar control and projection screen manufacturer, produces screens made from GreenGuard certified materials that do not release potentially harmful chemicals into the air over the course of time. Although these fabrics were originally created for use in schools, they work well in any office space, especially where employees may have asthma or strong allergies. Using a projection system in lieu of a large monitor or LCD panel also helps decrease energy usage because projectors take less electricity to run and are more likely to be shut off by employees once a presentation is completed. Even digital signage solutions are becoming more energy-efficient: many monitor manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi, are creating panels with built-in scheduling features that allow their operation to be put on a timer to prevent them from running constantly.

So how exactly do “green” technology products benefit the environment? The US Department of Energy reports that generating 1 Megawatt hour of energy leads to the burning of 810 pounds of coal and releases over 1 ton of carbon dioxide. Commercial lighting also produces heat that, in summer months or warm climates, must be replaced with cool air by the air conditioner. With more sensitive lighting control and less light usage, the space’s air conditioner works less and also uses less energy. And that’s not all: studies have shown that being able to control their own lighting surroundings can increase employees’ productivity by up to 7 percent.

Cutting your energy usage saves you money, too. Besides using less energy and therefore incurring less costs from the energy company, decreasing energy consumption during peek demand hours may actually earn you rebates from your energy company. This practice can also help prevent blackouts, similar to the one experienced in the Northeast region of the country in 2003. And nothing impedes productivity more than an electricity shortage! It’s not difficult to get your company on the road to greener practices (and pastures): all it takes is a little commitment and the right AV equipment, and you’ll be a regular Captain Planet in no time!

Videoconferencing saves money and streamlines meetings

Gas prices are on the rise. The cost of materials, inventory, and shipping are straining budgets to the max. So, with the current state of the economy, now would be a bad time for you to throw more money into technology, right? Wrong. Although spending hard-earned company money on “discretionary” items may seem like a crazy idea right now, businesses all across the country are currently investing in videoconferencing solutions that will actually cut down on travel expenditures and provide one of the highest returns on investment of any business expense.

Just to prove the point, let’s look at an example:

Your account executive needs to travel from your home office in Chicago to the offices of your client in Charlotte. It’s going to be a 2-day, 1-night stay with everything being expensed to your company, including a nice dinner for your client’s vice presidents. Here is a rough estimate of the charges you can expect to incur:

Plane Ticket: $300
Hotel: $105
Rental Car: $55
Food Expenses: $250
Total: $710

Now let’s assume that this (or a similarly priced) trip occurs twice per quarter for your account executive, totaling 8 trips per year. That bumps the total cost up to $5680 per year. And if you have 5 sales representatives? That means that every year, your company will spend roughly $28,400, if not more, on travel expenses alone. Over the course of 5 years, that’s $142,000 without any projected increases for growth in your company. And of course, we all want to experience growth!

With the implementation of a videoconferencing system into your company’s office, the need for those expenditures will completely disappear. Thanks to videoconferencing’s combined audio and visual feeds, you will still get that face-to-face feeling as you and your client look at each other through a television screen, computer monitor, or video projector and speak through microphones located inside the system. Most importantly, video teleconferences can involve multiple sites at the same time, meaning that several offices or clients can all participate in one meeting.

Not only does videoconferencing provide all of the necessary functions for a travel-less business meeting, but it is a quickly-implementable solution as well. Setting up the system only requires a telephone line or Internet connection to get started, making it a tool that’s available to any sized business. Dedicated videoconferencing products, such as those manufactured by Tandberg, house all of the required parts (microphones, cameras, speakers, etc.) in one piece of equipment; therefore, the system can be set up in nearly any location and doesn’t require a large space commitment.

So what does it cost? Well, most videoconferencing systems can be purchased and installed for less than what it probably costs you per year in travel expenses right now. And the best part: once the system is installed, visits to satellite offices or follow-up meetings with cross-country clients can be done from the comfort of your office without having to spend a penny to do it. Talk about a return on investment!