Millions of tons of greenhouse gases could be avoided if the groundwork was laid for permanent remote working
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a different kind of traffic revolution: While a new peak in business travel was reached in 2019 with 195 million, since the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020, working from home and video conferencing have shaped everyday working life. A study conducted by the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability concludes that, as a result, the number of business trips could be reduced by about one third in the future, thus saving around three million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
General conditions must be right
The representative survey of business travellers showed that the number of video conferences has increased significantly, as has the proportion of working from home. “Those who work from home more often save themselves the commute. Video conferences and remote working can make an important contribution to avoiding traffic,” says Michael Müller-Görnert, transport policy spokesman for the Traffic Club VCD. However, it is crucial that companies and politicians create the right conditions. An important prerequisite is the provision of suitable technology for remote working. So far, the survey respondents have almost exclusively used the services of large US providers and report technical problems and data protection concerns in this context.
Appropriate video conferencing technology exists already
Appropriate video conferencing solutions, such as the GDPR-compliant software from the German provider alfaview®, do exist. alfaview® was recently awarded the maximum four green lights by the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of the State of Berlin and impresses both on the legal and on the technical level. In terms of performance and stability, the tool is in no way inferior to products from Silicon Valley. Several hundred participants can communicate simultaneously with video in real time and in a stable manner, lip-synchronised and with high audio and video quality. The education company alfatraining and its 700 employees and 3,000 monthly course participants have been using the video conferencing software alfaview® for 10 years now. This success story shows that alternative working models can work successfully and that reliable technology forms the basis for a sustainable rethinking of the working world.