Wouldn’t it be great if businesses could accurately estimate the benefits of using technology, both in terms of money savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions? Now they can.
With the new AT&T Carbon Impact Assessment Tool, business customers can easily calculate the estimated GHG emissions and cost savings of using solutions that replace or reduce business travel and increase productivity and collaboration. AT&T* is the first communications provider to offer such a tool for businesses.
How It Works
Using detailed data such as company size, number of employees and employees’ travel plans, the AT&T Carbon Impact Assessment Tool calculates the estimated return on investment (ROI), GHG emissions avoided, and productivity enhancements that could be achieved through use or potential use of AT&T Telepresence Solution®, AT&T Connect, and AT&T Remote Access Service.
These services enable telecommuting, collaboration across locations and time zones, and virtual ‘face-to-face’ meetings, thus reducing, and in some cases eliminating, the need for business travel.
The tool can display the results of using these technologies in user-friendly terms, such as the equivalent number of passenger cars removed from the road, trees that no longer need to be planted to offset emissions, or houses’ worth of energy use avoided.
“Analytical, fact-based tools are invaluable for decision-makers, especially for determining non-obvious tradeoffs for complicated choices. Therefore, it's great to see one added to our toolbox,” said Dr. Michael E. Webber, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Co-Director, Clean Energy Incubator, The University of Texas at Austin.
“Environmental resources are precious. The AT&T Carbon Impact Assessment Tool helps quantify benefits based on real customer-provided data and protocol-based calculations to support businesses as they make smart choices in deploying ICT solutions,” said Alicia Dietsch, VP Marketing Communications, AT&T Business Solutions.
AT&T is engaged in ongoing research and modeling efforts to help better quantify the emission reductions that its products and services can provide. These solutions can help empower business customers and communities to be more efficient, productive and sustainable. For example, AT&T recently sponsored a study by the Carbon Disclosure Project and produced by Verdantix that shows that, by 2020, large U.S. companies1 that use cloud computing can achieve annual energy savings of $12.3 billion and annual carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil, or enough to power 5.7 million cars for one year2.
For more information on AT&T’s research and development of the AT&T Carbon Impact Assessment Tool, please go to www.att.com/communicationseconomy.
1Represents the 2,653 global firms generating annual revenues of more than $1 billion in the U.S.
2Based on Bureau of Transportation Statistics average mpg, Federal Highway Administration average annual mileage and the Energy Information Agency gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil.
