Telstra and the Australian World Wildlife Fund have launched a white paper that highlights how ICT can be both commercially friendly and improve environmental sustainability for large organisations, and the paper introduces a set of tools to enable enterprises to estimate the environmental and financial benefits of ICT investment.
Using the new Return on Investment (RoI) tools developed by Telstra and Capgemini, organisations can estimate the impact of specific ICT solutions - video conferencing, flexi-working, web contact centres and field force management. The tools estimate greenhouse gas emission reductions and employee productivity outcomes by assessing the financial costs and savings to the company for each alternative.
(download Sustainability paper)
Not surprisingly, video conferencing topped the list with claims that a large company spending around A$1 million in interstate travel per year could save 200 tonnes of the CO2 it emits in the process by implementing a high-definition video conferencing service.
That could be paid off through reduced travel expenditure in around seven months, it claims.
Then there's home working: 200 employees at home could reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 500 tonnes of CO2 each year. The ICT investment could be paid off through productivity improvements in around 11 months.. and so on.
Of course, Telstra is able to provide all the services that will help reduce carbon emissions so dramatically but there is no reference in the report to the CO2 contribution these extra services may make with extra power usage and infrastructure requirements. One can only imagine the effect on the environment if Telstra looked closer to home and stopped printing millions of paper bills each month! Nevertheless, and to Telstra’s credit, the white paper is a positive step in highlighting the environmental overheads of common practises. TP
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