Will video conferencing kill the road warrior?

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Posted by: Economist.com | LONDON
Categories: Green issues Technology
GREEN.VIEW, Economist.com’s environmental column, looks this week at the world of video conferencing. This is the technology that allows people in different parts of the world to simulate meetings with each other.

Here is the description of Hewlett-Packard's Halo system (pictured):

It consists of one half of a conference table, placed opposite three huge plasma screens in a specially designed studio. Callers in other studios appear on the screens in life-size, as if they were sitting opposite. All studios are designed with the same furniture and decoration, to aid the illusion. There are no delays: sound and image are perfectly synchronised. Users can make eye contact with one another across the continents. Sound emanates from the right direction, adding to the verisimilitude. It is not quite like being in the same room, but close enough to allow natural conversation, with all the interruptions, gestures and telling facial expressions that entails.

Halo costs $350,000 per room, though "HP claims that most customers will recoup their investment within a year”. This assertion was based on calculations showing staff travel between cities whose HP offices do not have Halo studios "grew by 3% in the first half of 2008, whereas it shrank by 11% where Halo had been installed."

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It's only possible to guess how many trips could be replaced by effective video conferencing, but HP reckons Halo allows its own staff to take 20,000 fewer flights a year. Our columnist points out, though, that the technology will struggle to replace many trips, echoing comments found frequently on this blog: “Video conferencing, however realistic, can never supplant a visit to the factory floor or a night at a fancy restaurant buttering up clients. People like getting out of the office every now and again."

But it could replace many less important journeys, bringing relief to "exhausted chief executives" who can "use it to wangle free time that would otherwise be spent touring their dominions". This, then, is the angle that proponents of video conferencing should be emphasising:

"Technologies that reduce emissions are likely to be adopted much faster if they bring ancillary benefits, such as cutting costs or sparing people a visit to a crowded airport."

If you manage your expectations, video conferencing has much in its favour. An 11% reduction in staff travel is not, after all, to be sniffed at. But it's not going to save the planet. What the environmentally minded business traveller needs, alas, is something that's rather more distant:

The gadget that will really change the world, emissions-wise, is the one that whisks people to Paris for that meeting of dubious significance without releasing any greenhouse gases—not the one that prevents the whole trip.