Video conferencing - an opportunity amid the flight chaos
19 April 2010
As air travel chaos continues across Europe, more and more businesses are discovering the advantages of environmentally-friendly video conferencing.
Many firms have already cut the number of flights they take, and those that have invested in video conferencing facilities will have been far more resilient to the Europe-wide flight ban. Video conferencing saves money, increases productivity and reduces carbon emissions.
Peter Lockley, our Head of Transport Policy, said, "EU transport ministers are among those who’ve held a meeting via video conferencing. Of course it's out of necessity that they held a ‘virtual’ meeting, but maybe they’ll now be inspired by how much time and taxpayers' money, let alone carbon emissions, they’d save by doing this more often."
With air travel set to become one of the UK's biggest contributors to carbon emissions, the switch to virtual meetings is something WWF is working hard to encourage. We’re helping businesses and public bodies to cut 20% of their flights through our One in Five Challenge: if every business in Europe made similar cuts to their business flights, 22 million tonnes of CO2 a year would be saved – that’s equivalent to taking a third of the UK's cars off the roads. Companies already taking part in the Challenge are making significant financial savings as well as lessening their impact on the environment by reducing their carbon emissions.
We’re urging businesses affected by the travel chaos to try video conferencing for themselves. A long-term investment in these facilities could help them mitigate the risks of future travel disruptions as well as creating a real cost-effective alternative to air travel.
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Find out more about our One in Five Challenge
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