More to Telepresence than Reducing Carbon Footprint

Some large corporations have been justifying telepresence solutions as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) considerations and greening efforts to reduce their carbon footprints. One client asked us to calculate the reduction of their carbon footprint attributable to using a telepresence solution in lieu of conducting physical meetings. Conducting a carbon audit for such an activity is not a trivial matter. Certainly there is a huge benefit in reduced air travel. On the other hand, the energy usage and carbon footprint of associated cloud-based services must also be quantified.

Though clients readily look at green benefits for justification they should not overlook the numerous efficiency, effectiveness and cost saving improvements made available by using the latest telepresence products. Current HD systems capture subtleties and nuance that in some cases are not even perceptible in conventional physical meetings. For example, current systems are capable of broadcasting in real time, HD renderings of a handful of remote executives on a single screen concurrently. In real life, are you able to concurrently view five or more meeting participants in a single view?

An unexpected justification of telepresence systems has been in the area of emergency and disaster response. For example, large financial institutions are setting up telepresence systems as preemptive or precautionary measures to deal with a potential pandemic outbreak or other disaster that might not allow key executives access to their conventional offices and systems.

If you have further research or thoughts on telepresence justification or related carbon footprint calculations, please contact the writer directly.