InterCall Press Releases
Conferencing Leads Practices for “Green” Business
InterCall survey shows more companies turn to conferencing as part of conservation efforts
CHICAGO (April 22, 2008) – In a recent survey where individuals were asked what their companies are doing to reduce the size of its carbon footprint, the top response was providing conferencing tools to cutback on travel (66%). The poll of over 900 workers, released by InterCall, investigated the steps companies are taking to increase environmentally-friendly practices.
"Businesses are an important group to target with green issues," said Carolyn Campbell, senior director of marketing for InterCall. "Avoiding travel by using conferencing is a change businesses can make that is immediate and easy to implement. They can easily reduce their footprint without expensive changes to their product or processes...it’s simply a change in behavior."
Just how involved are the employees in their companies' quest to be green? The survey found:
- To collaborate with remote teams while cutting down on travel, the main technologies used are phone conference calls (76%), Web conferences (63%) and video conferences (50%), which significantly cut down on business trips.
- Seventy-one percent of survey respondents said their companies enable employees to telecommute on a full or part-time basis. Of those supporting telecommuting, 25 percent say their companies actively encourage the practice.
- With conferencing tools being utilized more, 72 percent of people said that they take zero to three business trips per year that require flying.
- A mere 5 percent of respondents said their companies are doing nothing to address their environmental footprint.
- Other popular responses for how companies are becoming “green” in the workplace include recycling (61 percent) and working with environmentally-friendly vendors (29 percent).
When it comes to awareness of green issues overall, only 31 percent of employees know their company’s carbon footprint and another 31 percent reported that their company is planning to complete a carbon footprinting project within the next year.
"This survey shows that while companies are all at different phases in their green missions, environmental initiatives are certainly on everyone’s radar these days and reducing business travel has become a major focus of many corporate efforts," says Campbell.
Green Business/Add One
The InterCall survey, which was administered in January 2008 at http://www.greenconferencing.com/, generated more than 900 responses from workers across the country.
About InterCall
InterCall, a subsidiary of West Corporation, is the largest conference and collaborations service provider in the world, and a leading provider of global cloud-based unified communications services. Founded in 1991, InterCall offers telephony, messaging, conferencing and collaboration tools for businesses of all sizes, from large global enterprises to small or regional companies. With a global footprint and broad service capabilities, InterCall’s flexible models for hosted, managed and on-premises communication services help companies get the most out of their business processes.
InterCall's strong U.S. presence, including four call centers and 26 sales offices, is bolstered by operations in Canada, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. For more information, please visit www.intercall.com.
