Lifesize® PlanetWise® program will promote green technologies and policies, improve the company’s environmental efficiency and provides support to The Climate Group, a leading environmental NGO
Lifesize Communications, the global leader in high definition visual communications, today announced Lifesize® PlanetWise™, a comprehensive environmental initiative to promote green technologies that reduce pollution, improve the company’s environmental efficiency and provide pro-bono support to leading environmental non-governmental organizations.
“Lifesize believes in the power of high definition video to change the way we work and live,” said Craig Malloy, Lifesize CEO. “Video communication has a tremendous potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Each trip avoided by using video has a direct, measurable reduction in an organization’s carbon footprint. By reducing the need to travel, Lifesize can have a profound and positive impact on the environment.”
“Real environmental change can only happen when many people change their behavior. Our greatest contribution to the environment is to create a communication experience so lifelike that it is preferable to travel and affordable enough for mainstream adoption. We will continue to push the price-performance envelope with products like our Lifesize Express that make high definition affordable for everyone, everywhere.”
As part of the company’s PlanetWise program, Lifesize conducted a thorough environmental audit of company operations to measure the company’s carbon footprint and identify opportunities for environmental improvement. Lifesize will share the company’s best environmental practices through the PlanetWise program.
“Lifesize is dedicated to being an environmentally friendly company, and our commitment starts with our own operations,” said Craig Malloy, Lifesize CEO. “With our audit complete, we can implement practices to help minimize, monitor and continually improve our environmental performance as we grow to be the market leader in our industry.”
“We learned in our audit that Lifesize is on the right track. Our use of video communications instead of travel has helped us build a world-class, high-growth company with global development, manufacturing and sales operations with greater speed, better business results and less pollution” said Craig. “In the future we will rely even more on video and less on travel.”
Lifesize PlanetWise education materials will provide information about the environmental benefits of video communication, strategies for successful implementation and tools for accurately measuring cost savings and carbon footprint reduction.
Lifesize is supporting The Climate Group, an independent, nonprofit organization which works internationally to advance business and government leadership on climate change. Lifesize has donated high definition video conferencing systems to The Climate Group to support their global communication needs while reducing the international NGO’s need for business travel. The Climate Group works with more than 40 forward-looking member companies and governments like AIG, Barclays, Bloomberg, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase, Starbucks, Timberland and Virgin.
“The Climate Group welcomes Lifesize’s generous pro bono donation and their real-world solutions will support our international work with government and business leaders to accelerate a low-carbon economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions” said Steve Howard, CEO, The Climate Group. “Their technology can truly change the way we all work, reduce the need to travel and have a profound and positive impact on the environment”.
“The Climate Group recently launched the Voluntary Carbon Standard – a global benchmark standard for project-based voluntary emission reductions” said Steve Howard. “Lifesize’s technology means we can engage with all potential users of the standard with face-to-face meetings over video, reducing the need for carbon-intensive business travel. It will allow us to work faster and more efficiently across our global network of offices and partners – and reduce our own carbon footprint as well”.
“Lifesize is pleased to teaming up with The Climate Group and supports their efforts to help companies and governments improve environmental and economic performance through better business practices,” said Craig Malloy, CEO, Lifesize. ”Companies are beginning to realize that doing the right thing for the environment actually improves their bottom line and capacity to innovate, and they look to The Climate Group for leadership on delivering low carbon business solutions.“
Lifesize’s equipment will be supporting The Climate Group in its work with its international coalition of corporate and government leaders to accelerate a low carbon economy.
“Working with The Climate Group puts Lifesize in the company of forward-looking businesses who are looking to identify the best environmental technologies and ideas and put them into widespread practice” said Craig Malloy.
Video is Green – but only if it is used
“Lifesize was founded because we believed in the power of high definition to deliver on the promise of video communications,” said Malloy. “I have been in the video communications industry for 14 years, and while the promise of video has always been there, the experience of using low resolution, low frame rate systems has been so bad, that video was the technology of last resort. Most systems were bought with great hopes but weren’t used because they weren’t useful.”
“Our high definition video solution changes everything. It makes video conferencing a viable and even preferable alternative to travel,” said Malloy. “We understand that for any green technology to make a positive impact on the environment, it has to get widespread adoption – and that means making an experience so good that people want to use it and so affordable that people can use it.”
“We believe that a quality telepresence experience should not be reserved for the boardrooms of the richest companies in the world, but accessible to every knowledge worker who needs to communicate with remote colleagues.”
Lifesize’s all-HD video product portfolio is now the industry’s broadest and most affordable high definition product line, ranging from simple point-to-point video systems to highly customized, multi-display, multi-HD camera video systems. All Lifesize products provide stunning quality that delivers an immersive, high definition telepresence experience over existing broadband networks.
Video communication facts: By implementing high definition video communications, companies can make an immediate, measurable and lasting change in their carbon footprint by reducing car, train and air travel.
For most individuals, air travel is the single greatest variable in their total carbon footprint. While all reductions in carbon dioxide emission are desirable, a single jet trip can completely outstrip the carbon dioxide savings made in other areas. Video communications can reduce or eliminate the need to make routine plane trips all together.
Average carbon footprint of jet travel:
- Short-haul round trip (New York-Chicago, Frankfurt-London): 0.75-1.25 metric tons of CO2 each trip
- Medium-haul round trip (Hong Kong-Beijing, New York-Los Angeles): 1.5-3 metric tons of CO2 each trip
- Long-haul round trip (London-New York, Sydney-Tokyo, Singapore-Dubai, Miami-Rio de Janerio): 3.5-7 metric tons of CO2 each trip
Frequent car trips can create a large increase in an individual’s carbon footprint as well. Employees whose job duties require regular commuting to other locations for meetings can realize great savings if meetings can be conducted using video instead.
Average carbon footprint of local travel
- Daily cross-town trip (20 miles each way), average car (20 mpg city) 5 days per week: 3.51 metric tons of CO2 annually.
- Daily cross-town trip, full-size SUV or truck (12 mpg city) 5 days per week: 5.85 metric tons of CO2 annually.
Because the electricity used for video calls is nearly negligible in comparison to the energy used to travel, each video call that saves a trip is a direct reduction of carbon output.
To read more about how Lifesize is helping the environment, browse Our Green Approach section.
About The Climate Group
The Climate Group (www.theclimategroup.org) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that works internationally with government and business leaders to advance climate change solutions and accelerate a low carbon economy.
Its coalition of proactive leaders – from government, business and civil society – has demonstrated that emissions reductions, essential to slow climate change, can be achieved while boosting profitability and competitiveness. More companies, states, regions and cities around the world are realizing there are significant economic as well as environmental advantages of taking decisive action now. The Climate Group was founded in 2004 and has offices in the UK, USA, China, India and Australia.
Global ICT Study: The Climate Group and GeSI [Global e-Sustainability Initiative] recently launched an independent research study into carbon impacts of the global ICT sector and its role in catalyzing transformation to a low-carbon economy which will report in 2008.
About the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)
The Voluntary Carbon Standard (www.v-c-s.org) provides a robust, new global standard for voluntary offset projects. It guarantees carbon offsets that businesses and consumers buy can be trusted and have real environmental benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions. Development of the VCS was led by The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and it launched on 19 November 2007.
