subject: Reduce Costs & Emissions With Ip Telephony And Carbon Neutral Telephony [print this page] Its not manna from heaven, but its a good start!
Ask procurement managers about their two primary objectives, and more often than not they are value for money and carbon reduction. When they come together, so much the better.
With regard to the public sector, at the end of 2008, the Government launched its Greening Government ICT: Efficient, Sustainable, Responsible strategy, aimed at reducing the environmental impact of their ICT. The strategy has two objectives: to make energy consumption of their ICT systems carbon neutral by 2012, and to make them carbon neutral across their lifetime (including manufacture and disposal) by 2020.
Business has a similar agenda to bolster their bottom line in difficult times as well as comply with their sustainability and corporate responsibility objectives.
Thus far, telephony has not been top of the review list for its impact on carbon footprint. Yet recently The Cabinet Office publishes a number of documents aimed at its ICT procurement departments including recommendations to consider VoIP as a replacement for desk-top phones and to review and reduce energy consumption of PBX equipment.
IP telephony has the opportunity not just to reduce energy consumption but also to radically enable more flexible working. Not only can flexible working increase individual and corporate performance but it is also a significant contributor to carbon reduction with less travel to and from a fixed place of work as people work from home more.
Cost effective and reliable VoIP solutions are now available for every businesses, from large corporations to the one person business.
VoIP does not have to be an all or nothing solution. SIP trunks and IP Extensions to traditional PBXs are replacing ISDN and copper lines because they allow businesses to add IP functionality without ditching their existing telephony investments.
Call handling and business flexibility are being maximised by the intelligent combination of IP Telephony, Carbon Neutral call minutes and SIP trunks.
Carbon neutral telephony is now a real option for every business and all the public sector using Carrier Pre Select (CPS).
CPS is a simple process at the carrier network level to move calls to carbon neutral carriers without having to make changes on customer sites.
Traditional carriers are not currently able to offer carbon neutral telephony because their energy use is too high, it is only the new soft switched carriers with low energy usage. Carbon credits are then used to offset the remaining energy usage.
As your department or business look to achieve it's budget and environmental responsibilities, take a new look at how IP Telephony and Carbon Neutral call minutes can help meet your goals.
