Dimension Data Canada knows firsthand the green benefits from communications solutions and has been working to share that with its customers.
Darryl Wilson, area practice director for Canada, says that Dimension Data internally turned to unified and visual communications to reduce its own carbon footprint as part of a mandate from its CEO to be a green and carbon transparent organization internally. It has used visual communications to reduce travel through telework, but also eliminate air travel for local and international meetings.Unlike the benefits of virtualization, Dimension Data says its customers are only starting to see the green advantages from visual communications and, at the high end, telepresence. Wilson says it helps that the company has been using them internally to meet their own strict environmental policies.In 2008, Dimension Data submitted to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a not-for profit international organization that seeks to build transparency around greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the company has implemented its own GHG reduction initiatives in its various countries, and started the Office Sustainability Services consulting group to promote a “carbon-friendly infrastructure”.Dimension Data believes that the ICT industry has an opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions by five times its own significant GHG inventory through reducing the emissions from general business by 15 per cent by 2020. To further educate the industry recently launched an e-book presenting the benefits of e-procurement, a go-to market strategy around how IT (which is responsible for approximately two per cent of GHG) can have a significant impact on the other 98 per cent, and server virtualization assessments for clients.
