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being seen as a net-benefit way to reduce an organization’s total footprint. Instead of burning gasoline to commute to the office for a meeting, employees can collaborate on a video call. Instead of burning jet fuel to fly to a client’s headquarters in another city or another country, they can meet on a video call. Beyond simple meetings, the benefits extend to virtual scenarios including distant site visits, walkthroughs, speeches, seminars and even entire conventions, which all have massively lower environ- mental impacts than their physical counterparts. A growing body of research is revealing that work- from-home and hybrid work policies can lower elec- tricity usage in office buildings significantly, in addition to direct fossil fuel use for vehicles. With 28 percent of total U.S. emissions originating in transporta- tion, companies striving to improve sustainability can make few changes that are more impactful than en- abling workers to work from home at least part-time. In fact, Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics recently stated, “There is no easier, quicker and cheaper way to reduce your carbon footprint than by reducing commuter travel …The annual envi- ronmental impact of half-time remote work (for those who both want to work remotely and have a compat- ible job) would be the greenhouse gas equivalent of taking the entire N.Y. State workforce off the road.” Looking Good While Doing Good The quality of collaboration technology is key to making remote collaboration – and reduced cor- porate carbon emissions – a reality. Luckily, video conferencing technology has advanced immensely, paving the way for remote collaboration to replace in-person meetings without missing a beat. Remote work can produce major sustainability benefits, but it can present technical challenges if using the wrong collaboration technology. Many basic webcams and microphones integrated in lap- tops, for example, don’t even match the video and audio capture quality of high-end smartphones. Since the home office is the new corner office, more workers who spend hours a day on video will want to look their best and make investments to improve quality and reliability. Better solutions exist in abundance, with ad- vanced cameras, microphones, headsets and soft- ware all helping to improve the quality of virtual communications through clearer picture and sound and more reliable, trouble-free set up. The options range from sub-$100 packages that simply upgrade the audio and video quality to $1,000-plus professional-grade tools with special features such as noise cancellation, remote con- trols, pan, tilt and zoom functionality, multiple cam- eras and multi-microphone arrays that can capture entire rooms evenly. Saving energy and reducing impact is a smart, responsible goal for organizations to pursue, and those that invest in low-impact technologies to en- able and encourage remote collaboration inherently make their operations more environmentally friendly. More Than Just Sustainability According to Global Workplace Analytics, approxi- mately 56 percent of U.S. workers hold a job that is at least partially compatible with remote work, and even before the pandemic a whopping 80 percent of employees wanted to work from home part-time. In fact, more than a third of those polled said they would even take a pay cut in exchange for more flexible in-office hours. While reducing salaries and wages may not be necessary or prudent, the widespread willingness among workers to make these changes show that restructuring work can provide far more benefits than simply reducing use of fossil fuels. Cost savings can be a major benefit as well, with data showing that reducing business travel and allowing half-time remote work can save up to $11,000 per year per employee. Of course, we must consider the quality-of-life changes offered by working from home. With the average U.S. commute totaling 52 minutes each day, workers who stay home two days a week end up saving seven hours each month (nearly a full workday), while also eliminating stress from traffic, health effects from local air pollution inherent in combustion vehicles and wear and tear on the ve- hicles themselves. Remote work has grown from a trend to a stan- dard in a year, forcing companies to be more agile and invest in technologies relevant to how work is done in 2021, not how it was done in 2019. Recent research conducted by Price Waterhouse Cooper found that 83 percent of employers and 71 percent of employees rated remote work “successful,” and less than 20 percent of executives want to return to the office as it was pre-COVID. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to organizing employees and the workday, there is a consistent need across all industries and responsibilities to be able to clearly, accurately and reliably partake in video-based meetings for internal and external communications. A natural byproduct of increased remote communication is a major opportunity for improving sustainability and reducing emissions and impact. All companies should be aware of technologies that can help maintain the expected level of performance. J Stefan Eriksson is chief marketing officer at Konftel, a Sweden-based collaboration devices company. 29 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com