Earth Day: Lync can make a difference

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Microsoft News Center posted a piece yesterday featuring research from The World Wildlife Fund that calls out the benefit that increased telecommuting and virtual meetings could have on the environment.

With today being Earth Day, I wanted to take a few minutes to write about the various options that companies and workers are using to evaluate their carbon footprint and make their businesses greener. This can include offering different commuting options like free bus passes and carpools, or it can mean increasing recycling, composting and paper-free efforts in the office. And now, with UC tools like Microsoft Lync, companies can reduce travel and provide more employees with the option of working remotely. Here at Microsoft, and with Lync we are redefining what it means to be present at meetings.   In house, we’ve already made huge strides in reducing our global carbon footprint by using Lync and other related technologies. With HD video and voice capabilities, Lync makes it easy to have virtual “in-person” meetings, which not only cuts down on travel costs, but also on Microsoft’s carbon footprint. For example:

  • By avoiding more than 45,000 trips per year on average, with an average cost of $2,050, Microsoft has saved a total of $92 million in travel costs annually.
  • According to Microsoft IT, Microsoft hosts approximately 100,000 conferences every month using Live Meeting, Office Communications Server and now Lync.
  • Microsoft Travel estimates employees have avoided flying more than 100 million miles annually when compared with travel in 2007, saving 17,000 metric tons of CO2 annually.

To read more about the cost and sustainability benefits we are experiencing here at Microsoft thanks to unified communications technologies like Lync, you can access the full case study here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc982178.aspx.
For more information about how your company can rethink their business to save the environment, visit: https://www.microsoft.com/Environment/products-and-solutions/rethink-business.aspx.