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Broadband & Mobile Featured Article
April 18, 2008
iLinc 'Green Meter' Enables Companies with Tool That Measures Environmental ROI of Web Conferencing
By Nathesh TMCnet Contributing Editor
Phoenix-based Web conferencing firm iLinc has produced the industry's first automatic IP
address-based CO2 savings application - the Green Meter, which is built inside its Web conferencing software. The idea is to reach for companies who wanted to keep track of their CO2 savings measurement to promote them as an eco (News - Alert) friendly enterprise.
iLinc is a provider of Web conferencing software and audio conferencing solutions for highly secure and cost-effective online meetings, presentations, and training sessions. The Company's technology allows people in diverse locations to communicate and collaborate online while avoiding the expense, environmental damage, and productivity losses associated with travel.
The Green Meter has built in codes to calculate the power and cost saved by people who attend web conferences instead of live conferences. The place of the person is noted by the IP address and through that the time and travel cost that would incur to that person is calculated and also the amount of CO2 saved by meeting via Web conference rather than traveling is also measured. The program recognizes what means of travel would commonly be used for the distance such as car, small aircraft, large aircraft, etc. and keeps a running tab of the CO2 savings and its associated environmental and financial costs.
"It was during a lunch meeting some time ago with former Vice President of USA, Al Gore, a family friend from Tennessee, that I had what you might call an 'aha' moment," said James M. Powers, Jr., iLinc's president and chief executive officer. "I then immediately went back to the office to get our product team working to develop the Green Meter inside the iLinc Web conferencing suite to make it a reality."
“We know there is a direct connection between Web conferencing software and environmental sustainability, so in an effort to help customers and support the worldwide movement to counteract global warming, we developed this tool to quantify the benefits of meeting online. A lot of Web sites have basic carbon calculators, but the iLinc Green Meter is a much more advanced application for measuring carbon emission savings”. Powers said.
One organization seeing the benefits of the iLinc Green Meter is the State of Arizona. Across its 14 agencies currently using iLinc, the State of Arizona has saved 300,000 pounds of carbon emissions in the first quarter of 2008 alone.
"Web conferencing has the potential to significantly improve state employee productivity, reduce carbon emissions, avoid transportation costs, and increase collaboration between state and local officials in disparate parts of the state," said Chris Cummiskey, chief information officer for the State of Arizona and Director of the Government Information Technology Agency.
In recent times more enterprises are showing increased awareness in environment. They are collecting a lot of data on their companies’ environmental impact. A recent study has found that 35 percent of company's travel department now is responsible for providing carbon emissions information, up from 20 percent in 2006, and 36 percent reduced company travel as a measure for supporting sustainability, up from 23 percent a year earlier.
iLinc's Green Meter comes standard with iLinc version 9.0 and includes a variety of tools to help companies monitor and report their carbon savings. iLinc customers have saved a combined one billion pounds of CO2 so far and that number is expected to grow exponentially as more and more customers upgrade to the latest iLinc version.
Nathesh is a TMCnet Contributing Editor.
address-based CO2 savings application - the Green Meter, which is built inside its Web conferencing software. The idea is to reach for companies who wanted to keep track of their CO2 savings measurement to promote them as an eco (News - Alert) friendly enterprise.
iLinc is a provider of Web conferencing software and audio conferencing solutions for highly secure and cost-effective online meetings, presentations, and training sessions. The Company's technology allows people in diverse locations to communicate and collaborate online while avoiding the expense, environmental damage, and productivity losses associated with travel.
The Green Meter has built in codes to calculate the power and cost saved by people who attend web conferences instead of live conferences. The place of the person is noted by the IP address and through that the time and travel cost that would incur to that person is calculated and also the amount of CO2 saved by meeting via Web conference rather than traveling is also measured. The program recognizes what means of travel would commonly be used for the distance such as car, small aircraft, large aircraft, etc. and keeps a running tab of the CO2 savings and its associated environmental and financial costs.
"It was during a lunch meeting some time ago with former Vice President of USA, Al Gore, a family friend from Tennessee, that I had what you might call an 'aha' moment," said James M. Powers, Jr., iLinc's president and chief executive officer. "I then immediately went back to the office to get our product team working to develop the Green Meter inside the iLinc Web conferencing suite to make it a reality."
“We know there is a direct connection between Web conferencing software and environmental sustainability, so in an effort to help customers and support the worldwide movement to counteract global warming, we developed this tool to quantify the benefits of meeting online. A lot of Web sites have basic carbon calculators, but the iLinc Green Meter is a much more advanced application for measuring carbon emission savings”. Powers said.
One organization seeing the benefits of the iLinc Green Meter is the State of Arizona. Across its 14 agencies currently using iLinc, the State of Arizona has saved 300,000 pounds of carbon emissions in the first quarter of 2008 alone.
"Web conferencing has the potential to significantly improve state employee productivity, reduce carbon emissions, avoid transportation costs, and increase collaboration between state and local officials in disparate parts of the state," said Chris Cummiskey, chief information officer for the State of Arizona and Director of the Government Information Technology Agency.
In recent times more enterprises are showing increased awareness in environment. They are collecting a lot of data on their companies’ environmental impact. A recent study has found that 35 percent of company's travel department now is responsible for providing carbon emissions information, up from 20 percent in 2006, and 36 percent reduced company travel as a measure for supporting sustainability, up from 23 percent a year earlier.
iLinc's Green Meter comes standard with iLinc version 9.0 and includes a variety of tools to help companies monitor and report their carbon savings. iLinc customers have saved a combined one billion pounds of CO2 so far and that number is expected to grow exponentially as more and more customers upgrade to the latest iLinc version.
Nathesh is a TMCnet Contributing Editor.
