There have been a couple of really cool pieces in the news lately about how telecommuting and working on a computer in general can be environmental boons.
Recently the Nature Conservancy ran a series of articles about Everyday Environmentalists in which green gurus from various industries shared easy to follow tips with their readers. Christian Renaud, a Cisco executive, had a simple enough pointer: cut down on business travel.
Modern technology has made it increasingly easier to conduct business from anywhere, yet as Renaud asks, “So why do people still hop on cross-country flights for two-hour face-to-face meetings instead of using rich collaboration technologies like video conferencing, voice over the Internet and virtual worlds?”
Renaud’s made the carectomy-friendly leap in his own business life and now incorporates “virtual world technologies” whenever possible. This model represents a huge savings in both time and money, and it also decreases gas consumption and pollution by keeping businesspeople out of cars and airplanes.
There are occasions where face-to-face meetings are a necessity, but many business meetings can be carried out just as effectively remotely. Renaud offers specific tips re: which tools to use for specific situations and how to provide for good follow-up conversations after virtual business conferences.
Telecommuting a couple days per week, reading news online, emails, document downloads, and instant messages all allow people and things to travel while consuming much smaller amounts of energy. What’s more, online shopping has reduced trips to retail stores, resulting in significant energy savings.
Energy intensity has continued to drop more than 2% every year since the internet first appeared. Without the internet, the paper’s authors suggest that we would need one billion more barrels per oil per year! Indeed, ever kilowatt/hour we spend on the internet looks to have saved about 10 kilowatt/hours of energy.
Photos via flickr by epha & rogiro.
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