Investing in the right tech is an investment in our planet
For more than 50 years, Earth Day – celebrated annually on April 22 – has helped garner attention and support for environmental preservation. This year’s theme, “invest in our planet”, aligns seamlessly with initiatives that are being adopted across organizations in both the public and private sectors as corporate citizenship and responsibility become increasingly important. Investing in the planet can mean many different things. But one particular investment that can help both businesses and the planet thrive is technological innovation.
The right speech-to-text solutions, for example, can drive small changes that add up to big impacts when it comes to protecting the environment. Some specific Earth-friendly aspects of this useful technology include:
Reducing Reliance on Paper
It’s commonplace to jot notes on a pad during a call or print multiple copies of agendas and related materials for meetings. But among the drawbacks of physical notes (which can be misplaced, difficult to track, and a challenge to keep confidential) is the fact that they use precious natural resources. Beyond the trees themselves, the water, electricity and other resources used for processing paper are significant.
Spoken notes can be captured, shared, stored, and accessed digitally using robust and feature-rich voice software. This is a more environmentally friendly option, and makes data management much easier and accessible without taking up physical space. More convenience and less waste? It’s a win-win.
Connecting Digitally vs. Physically
Another strain on the Earth’s resources is the volume of travel that’s part of everyday life. Though electric cars are gaining popularity, they aren’t necessarily rapidly gaining adoption, comprising less than 1% of vehicles on the road in the United States. Similarly, air travel is almost completely reliant on fossil fuels.
Online meetings combined with speech-to-text technologies reduce the need for travel of all kinds. Accurately converting spoken language to documents that can be processed for editing, review, and approval – anytime and anywhere – enables highly efficient and productive remote work. It helps reduce or eliminate the need for commuting and business travel, while still connecting team members with each other, their vendors and clients, and keeping workstreams running as smoothly and effectively as possible.
Maximizing the Cloud
Reports from consultancies such as Accenture and ISG demonstrate how the cloud can contribute to lower carbon emissions, as cloud data centers typically boast superior virtualization ratios and higher-efficiency equipment when compared to traditional data centers. Further, their sheer scale and the fact that cloud data centers run resources only when needed (instead of being “always on”) allows them to run in a much more streamlined fashion.
The latest cloud-enabled, web-based voice solutions leverage these advantages to allow organizations to run their business more responsibly – and with increased business agility. By eliminating the need to install applications on local machines, being able to work across any device or operating system, and greatly reducing the need for physical server maintenance, they can move with the speed and flexibility today’s competitive landscape requires.
As non-renewable resources become scarcer, doing business sustainably will be a necessity. As Earthday.org states, organizations should do so not only to be an upstanding corporate citizen, but “because a green future is a prosperous future.”
With the availability of versatile technologies like speech-to-text innovations, businesses of all types and sizes can make strides now in paving a path to both operational and environmental optimization. Ready to see for yourself how easy it is? Contact our team by leaving a comment and get started with a free trial.
How much do you know about our Earth? Check out the Earth day quizzes!