As more and more businesses look to cutting their carbon footprint, both for environmental benefits and profit margins, they are looking into every aspect of the company to see where savings can be made. One of the top places which can have a real mark on reducing your energy foot print is transferring to a VoIP system. Of course reduced energy consumption means reduced bills but how does a VoIP implemented network reduce this energy and what should you avoid to maximise your eco credentials?
Reduced Transport
In the simplest example, allowing your staff to connect with colleagues and clients from anywhere in the world will save the planet from extra carbon emissions from transport. A good VoIP system can allow your staff to communicate not only across several different sites but also from home. More and more people are working from home for self employment but also as employees and this reduces the cars on the road commuting to work and also reduces the utility bills of the company.
Efficient Hosted Servers
Using a hosted VoIP service like VIP VoIP instead of an on site PBX system allows you to reduce your environmental effect in two ways. Firstly, an on site system means the purchase and installation of hardware. This will cost the company money but also add to the energy footprint via the manufacture and shipping of the new hardware and the power and transport of installation engineers. Secondly; having your VoIP system hosted for you stops your company using energy to maintain the running of servers and because VoIP service providers have many clients they will be able to run servers more efficiently then a single company. Having one company deal with many systems means they can group servers together and invest in climate controlled environments more effectively than a non IT business which reduces the overall energy being used to maintain it.
Reusable Hardware
VoIP is a very adaptable system and can be integrated into hardware using software developments. This unique feature means that companies can keep their original telephones and connect it to their VoIP system allowing a quick change over from another system. Reusing your old hardware has a very important impact on the environment, it means energy isn’t used to create a new product and the old product is not thrown away in to a landfill where it will take thousands of years to break down and in the mean time can leech chemicals in to the ground.
Reduces Paper Use
Using VoIP and internet services as a whole reduces the use of paper simply because everything can be stored online and there is not a need to print out reams of paper. Many companies around the world still use fax and the use of fax over IP means there is no need to print off a document and then use a fax machine to send it. You can simply use your computer to do the whole process reducing energy and the amount of equipment needed to get the job done.
But Make Sure to …
Be Wary of Hardware Upgrades
As we mentioned, reusing hardware is a great way to reduce your environmental impact if you switch to a VoIP service. Sometimes you have no choice but to install new VoIP phones but make sure you need them and always ask your provider if your old phones/handsets can be used. Saves for the environment and saves for you.
Dispose of technology consciously
If you do have to upgrade make sure that you dispose of any old hardware in a sensible way to reduce what is thrown in to landfill. Most parts of a phone can be recycled and there is plenty of companies that will take away your used technology for free and reuse it. Recycling Technology Limited is a good company for disposing of tech as they will pick it up for free, refurb and repurpose quality products and make sure that anything that is left does not go in to landfill and is disposed of appropriately.