Jonny Harrison is sailing to Australia from the UK via the Panama Canal before he starts work in Sydney on a secondment at his firm PricewaterhouseCoopers »
Andrew Hebden is Assistant Editor (Business) of The Journal »
Katie Pringle has started her own business, Rock, Paper, Scissors »
Andrew Mernin is the Digital Journalist for nebusiness »
Matthew Rippon is an IP lawyer for BHP Law »
Formerly editor of a national business lifestyle magazine, Jez Davison is a business writer for the Evening Gazette in Teesside »
Ross Smith, Head of Policy and Research at the North-East Chamber of Commerce »
Julian Christopher from Footprint Public Relations, on media and marketing »
Norma Foster from the North East Regional Portal writes about e-business »
Ian Brown, Northumberland farmer and businessman writes about the agricultural industry »
Accessibilty Champion Steve Wilkinson on the importance of inclusion »
Andrea Wilkinson of Shared Interest is visiting Rwanda to deliver business training »
Jonathan Wheatley from Stokesley-based MC Ware writes about IT matters »
Paul Williamson from Deloitte »Public consciousness is being raised over the increase in average temperatures across the planet. The debate on man-made contribution versus planetary cycles is still contentious and makes the carbon footprint very much an issue of the moment.
Considering that two thirds of the population drive to work it is not surprising that commuter traffic and ongoing air travel are the largest contributors to air pollution.
Printed paper documents – which are immediately out of date once they are printed – produce a massive amount of waste; as it takes effort, consumes unnecessary paper, printer toner and electricity all adding up to an unintentionally increased carbon footprint. Doing business in the most efficient way with the least amount of waste could have a significant impact to climate change.
Technology can help reduce an organisation’s carbon footprint whilst saving money in the long term by making processes more efficient and improving communication and travel.
Microsoft SharePoint offers basic web portal and intranet functionality and represents an integrated communication platform. It provides a complete view of the organisation, access to up to date information, efficient knowledge sharing and the possibility of automating business processes. This could effectively reduce the amount of paper involved.
Another example is the creation of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) which can be a cost effective and secure way for different corporations to provide users access to the corporate network and for remote networks to communicate with each other across the Internet. It also allows the implementation of home office workstations reducing the need to commute and provides an opportunity to create a more energy-conscious working environment.
But shouldn’t we all do a (little) bit to reduce our carbon footprint? So while employers are investigating Virtual Private Networks and the paperless office everybody could reuse a plastic bag, walk instead of drive or use bottles rather than cans to ease the “green conscience”.
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