Going Green with Video Conferencing

More and more companies are trying to go green, both in the hopes of helping their business and to get the tax breaks that come with it, but what are the best ways to do that? While some of the ways to go green can cost a lot of green to do, there are a few things you can do that cost very little while making a big difference.

Video conferencing for businesses is a cost efficient way to not only go green, but to also benefit your business and save money. You’ll wonder why you didn’t add this feature into your business before.

Cut Down on Fuel Emissions

One of the first and biggest ways video conferencing can not only protect the environment but also save you money is how it can cut down on fuel emissions. Most vehicles, like cars, trucks, and even planes, run on fossil fuel, which is one of the biggest contributors to pollution all around the world.

Services like online video conferencing from BlueJeans Network can significantly reduce the need to travel for your business. If you are a business with offices in other cities and states, you probably have to do a fair amount of traveling for meetings. By using these video conferencing services, traveling to the other offices isn’t necessary. Employees in different states can all attend the same meeting from their own offices, or even their homes.

Studies show that by 2020, businesses that choose to use video conferencing to reduce their carbon footprint will cut down on carbon emissions by around 5.5 million metric tons. Not just that, those same companies could save around nineteen billion in travel costs company-wide.

With numbers like that, why wouldn’t you choose to use video conference services?

Cut Down on Paper Waste

Another way video conferencing can help the environment, as well as save money, is that it reduces your paper waste. There is no need to print out information on paper documents so that everyone at the meeting has a copy. All reports, agendas, memos and more can be shared digitally and pulled up in documents on the computers that they are using to join the meeting.

Business print out thousands of pages annually to pass out packets during meetings, a practice that most employees think is pointless because they will be taking notes on these things anyway. You can save money on paper and ink by not going that route at all, and you’ll be saving more trees than recycling could all on it’s own.

Many services, like online video conferencing from Blue Jeans Network, gives you ways to share information like slides and documents, giving you an efficient way to exchange information without needing everyone to have a physical copy. This way of sharing information is better for organization and lets the employees have an easier time finding the documents without the chance of losing or throwing away the papers too.

Reduction of Plastic Products and Food

Many businesses offer water for their employees during meetings, and the easiest way to provide that is through water bottles or plastic glasses that they can fill up at water jugs. For video conferencing, there isn’t a need to supply water bottles. Most people who join conferences from their computers at home will use reusable water glasses or coffee mugs for their drinks.

This cuts down on the amount of plastic bottles and cups that end up in landfills every year instead of being recycled. This is also another way to cut your costs because you won’t need to be buying the water bottles or cups for them anymore. They can supply their own.

You can also reduce food costs and waste by doing your conferences through video rather than in a board room. There would be no needs to provide food for employees that could easily get their own food from their fridge before the meeting starts.

While sometimes companies will donate left over food to soup kitchens, the majority of that food from conferences goes into the garbage. That’s not only wasted money, but also more to fill up landfills with. There is no need for your business to buy food for the employees to eat during meetings when you use video conferencing, plus employees can make sure they have food they actually like to eat without the company having to guess.

Start Video Conferencing Today

Video conferences could be one of the easiest and most cost efficient ways to start going green. We live in a time when caring about the environment isn’t just good for the Earth, it’s also good for business. Not only can you save yourself money, but you can also get tax breaks for being environmentally friendly.

It’s really simple to get started with video conferencing. There’s no need to buy expensive equipment. Just sign up online at places like Blue Jeans Networking to begin changing your business over to video conferencing.