Remember my obsession with "green teams" and ideas generated by readers to use virtual meetings to clean up the carbon? Encouraging article in China Business News: "Telecommuting to solve Hubei’s carbon emissions problem." Check out the optimistic last paragraph about the impact of virtual meetings on carbon emissions. (My only nit is whether the virtual meeting carbon reduction is corrected for emissions of the IT infrastructure to support such meetings - a quibble, to be sure):
When the China Mobile Hubei Company recently called on other companies and the public sector to work together on a low-carbon smart city initiative, to turn Hubei province into a “low-carbon area” a dozen companies applauded the idea...
The National Development and Reform Commission selected Hubei, earlier this year, as one of the first group of bases in the country for low-carbon pilot tests.
It did not seem to be an easy job. The province is famous for its traditional concentration of heavy industries and scant regard for the environment, but, emerging telecom developments seem to paint a much more hopeful picture.
In fact, the telecommuting sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reductions in China, and could save 340 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2020, Guo told the audience of environmental experts, local government officials and company representatives.
In the long run, he said, savings from virtual meetings will increase at a much greater rate – about 623 million tons of CO2 annually – by 2030, thereby cutting commercial aviation emissions by nearly 40 percent...