SUSTAINABILITY
Sustaining Success
How an environmental consciousness may help businesses.
On the 10th of June 2021, the finishing preparations were being made before the leaders of the world descended on Carbis Bay in Cornwall. According to the Gov website, ‘Prime Minister Boris Johnson brought the world’s leading democracies together to reach major new agreements to help the world fight, and then build back better from coronavirus and create a greener, more prosperous future.’ Christ, I forgot about ‘Build back better’. Nevertheless, with the most powerful leaders in the world, and Boris Johnson, eagerly anticipated on Cornish soil, British artists Joe Rush and Alex Wreckage unveiled a sculpture of a handful of world leaders created entirely from e-waste. The motherboard Mount Rushmore depicted the seven G7 world leaders, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and U.S. President Joe Biden to “highlight the growing threat e-waste poses to the environment and the importance of taking action now.” As the Gov website points out, the G7 was called to work out how to move forward out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the genesis for many of the trends we see in the UC market today. However, as Sébastien Juras, Sustainability and Transformation Director, Alactel-Lucent Enterprise points out, there are environmental positives to remote working. “Whether by connecting people to people or people to machines, connectivity has had a positive impact on our world in many ways,” said Juras. “For the environment, connectivity and technology have helped to mitigate and reduce companies’ carbon footprints by enabling remote working and remote activities. “Through connectivity, global teams can work, limiting the need for increased or unnecessary travel. Connectivity has also helped to keep vital services running, even
in extreme conditions and therefore helped businesses to adapt to changing conditions.” This is backed up by the data. When the work-from-home revolution happened, daily global CO2
emissions in the US decreased by 17% in early April 2020 compared with the average 2019 levels, according to Nature Climate Change.
More recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences appears to show that people who work remotely full-time reduce their carbon emissions by 54 per cent compared to those who go into the office. Insights But it’s not just the fact that many of us do not need to drive to work anymore. After all, cars may be one of the more harmful transportation types, but trains and buses continue to run regardless of passenger numbers. That’s why Jack Hayes, director and founder of The Sustainability Speakers Agency, says that improvements to the environment go further than just cutting down on emissions. “Advances in connectivity have helped the environment,” said Hayes,” and the potential for us to go further and faster is huge. “Advancements in connectivity can unlock opportunities to decarbonise as well as create jobs and growth. 5G delivers much higher speeds, which in turn helps enable smart power grids, smart vehicles, smart buildings and smart cities. “These advancements will not only create efficiencies that will allow us to do more with less, but they also open up creative opportunities to better understand the environment and address problems before they get out of control. “In the future, improved connectivity will
Sébastien Juras
al-enterprise.com
Connectivity has had a positive impact on our world in many ways...
ucadvanced.com
27
Powered by FlippingBook