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The next time you choose videoconferencing over flying to a business destination, don’t think of it as an act of lethargy. On the contrary, you are joining the fight against climate change by reducing carbon emissions.
A report released by the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project India), along with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), here on Thursday, has revealed that business travel contributes over 55.04 lakh tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents (CO2e).
“Savings achieved through video-conferencing and telecommunicating with moderate ICT (Information and Communications technology) penetration in 2030 can offset greenhouse gas emissions more than 70 times the present emissions owing to annual air traffic between New Delhi and Mumbai,” the report quoted as an example.
The report ‘ICT sector’s role in climate change mitigation: An analysis of climate change performance and preparedness of global ICT companies’ analysed 320 ICT companies (10 from India) in over 35 countries in 2012-13. Companies which participated included Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Accenture, Google and Microsoft.
The study categorised emissions into: direct emissions, indirect emissions from consumption of purchased electricity, heat or steam, and other indirect emissions such as fuel and transport (vehicles not owned or controlled by the company).
In the third category, use of sold products accounted for 56 per cent of emissions, followed by purchased goods and services (35 per cent). These were followed by sources that included business travel and employee commuting. The first two categories include data centres and provision of network and connectivity services as sources of emissions.
Interestingly, the first two categories account for a significant percentage of emissions in emerging economies, such as India, China and South Africa. In comparison, the third category of emissions is significant in the U.S., Japan, the U.K. and France.
Core business strategy
The report also said 81 per cent of 320 companies analysed have integrated climate change into core business strategy and over 40 per cent of the companies have managed to reduce their emissions. Bangalore-based companies have adopted different strategies. While Wipro has “consolidated operations in energy efficient locations and increased renewable shares of office consumption”, Infosys has set “voluntary goals to reduce energy and water consumption in daily operations”.
Face-to-face visits will continue at the Dallas County Jail after county commissioners threw out a proposed contract with a videoconferencing company that would have banned them. The company, Securus Technologies, was seeking a contract to provide video visitations at the jail. Commissioners said they were still interested in the service, but not at the cost of stopping in-person visits. The ban on face-to-face visits appeared to be a way for the company, which is based in North Texas, to recoup its expenses for installing the video-visitation system. The company was going to spend around $5 million to set up the technology. It would then charge $10 for each 20-minute video chat. Dallas County would have received up to a 25 percent commission on those calls. Prohibiting in-person visits almost surely would have increased the number of video chats, which in turn would boost revenues for Securus — and for the county.
But when details of the contract were made public last week, County Judge Clay Jenkins led a last-ditch effort to reject it. Backed by inmates’ rights advocates, Jenkins said the contract made video visits too costly.
“It is a way to make money … off the backs of families,” he said.
He also said eliminating in-person visits would be inhumane. Commissioners were flooded with emails opposing the contract. At Tuesday’s meeting of the Commissioners Court, 17 people showed up to speak out against the plan. They included a man convicted of a murder for which he was later exonerated and a former state legislator, Terri Hodge, who spent time in federal prison for tax evasion. After more than two hours of discussion, the court voted to pull the item from its agenda. The staff was instructed to seek a new contract under different terms. Those new terms are to include the continuation of in-person visits and elimination of the county’s commission on video visits.
The five companies that bid on the original request from the county will be eligible to submit new proposals.
The vote was 4-1, with Jenkins the sole dissenter. He wanted to completely start over with the bidding process, opening it to any company.
Most jail inmates, he said, are awaiting trial — meaning they are legally presumed to be innocent — or have been convicted only of misdemeanors. Neither the county nor its private contractor should be looking to make money off of the inmates or their families, Jenkins said.
Though he wanted the commissioners to take broader action Tuesday, he said their vote was a step in the right direction. “I am very pleased with the court today in looking at these commissions and saying that they want to get out of the commission business,” Jenkins said.
Dallas County has been exploring video visitation for years. It’s been portrayed as an additional option for inmates’ friends and families who can’t or won’t trek downtown to the jail. But county staff acknowledged that the technology is also intended to save money. Managing visitors and moving inmates to visitation areas takes significant staff time, they said.
Commissioner Mike Cantrell said he thought the per-minute cost of the video chats was fair. He said the county spends about $107 million a year to run the jail and brings in about $10.8 million in bond forfeitures, fines and other assessments on inmates. But the commissioners were unanimous in not wanting to eliminate in-person visits. That was also the main concern of the plan’s opponents who spoke at the meeting, including several defense attorneys. Hodge, the former state legislator, urged the commissioners to consider the families of poor inmates.
“Many of these families don’t have BlackBerrys, smartphones and computer terminals in their homes to allow for video visitation,” she said. Richard Miles, who spent nearly 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, said visits from loved ones are vital to the well-being and rehabilitation of inmates. “My father died while I was in prison,” he said. “What did I hold on to? My visits.”
By MATTHEW WATKINS The Dallas Morning News
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46 per cent still think face-to-face meetings make the most sense for their business and doubts about conference calls still very much exist with 35 per cent put off video conferencing by poor audio or visual quality. Meanwhile, 28 per cent blamed the complexity of setting up the technology for not bothering to implement a conference calling strategy.
Businesses must look to new technologies such as High-Definition [HD] video conferencing that flawlessly meet business expectations to help them maintain relationships, achieve their business goals and remain as efficient as possible.
Videoconferencing should not be confused with satellite teleconferencing as the two involve different transmission media and different modes of interaction. The most important distinction to remember between the two is that videoconferencing allows for real-time interaction among participants while teleconferencing allows for limited interaction.
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A multipoint videoconference is a videoconference involving more than two sites and requires a Multipoint Control Unit otherwise known as MCU or Bridge to connect more than two endpoints at a time.
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