June 29th, 2009
“But behind all that is where we’re seeing the big shifts,” Woodgate says. “We’re beginning to see a completely different world” – one where sustainability and eco-survival are inextricably entwined with communications technology.
Gone are the days when people feared becoming more isolated because of technology, Woodgate says – when people thought using a computer to communicate was counter-intuitive to the human need to connect face to face in real time. And as Kauai’s Francisco pointed out, consider how much technology has helped link protestors of Iran’s recent elections to the rest of the world.
So in the broadest and most optimistic sense, virtual communications of any sort – particularly those that reward clients by planting trees – benefit the planet on multiple levels.
“That’s the big shift,” Woodgate observes. “I think that once external costs related to environmental issues become part of a company’s overall bottom line, we then begin to look at companies not just from the standpoint of the traditional bottom line; what we begin to understand is there’s a layer above that. … It’s the question of, What are they costing the planet, versus what they are adding to the planet. It’s not the same as what you literally contribute to a society. … So there’s a big trend, a different trend, which is about evolving digital technologies for profitable green - for environmental contribution.
“There’s a whole movement behind video conferencing and virtual meeting or telepresence that fits in extremely well with sustainability,” he says. “It’s a pretty clear way of reducing our impact on the planet. And putting all these things together, one has to say ‘yes’ to it.
“I don’t think we’re seeing companies doing it for that reason at the moment,” the futurist adds. “That’s a new type of transparency that we haven’t arrived at yet. But there’s definitely a trend toward it. People will be looking at it from the standpoint of, ‘What have we saved, how do we save resources?’ And companies will be judged on that, and I think we’ll be seeing evaluation by the consumer based on that.”
Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media
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