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New Device Cuts Meetings' Carbon Footprint by 85%
New Device Cuts Meetings' Carbon Footprint by 85%
Published 08-06-08
Submitted by Synanto Ltd
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM. - August 6, 2008 - (MARKET WIRE) - Faced with increasingly environmentally aware customers, a growing number of meeting venues are losing business because they are not addressing their carbon footprint. But there are very few options open to venues: either fundamentally re-fit their building with low energy solutions, or look at the carbon footprint of their meetings.
As a result of the launch of a new device, de-carbonising meetings is increasingly being seen as the cheaper and simpler option. The 'MeetingPod' from Synanto not only offers a paperless meeting solution, but a more efficient way to manage meetings in general.
"As everyone who has been to a meeting knows, they are very paper-intensive events", comments Dave Wickett, Synanto's sales director. "Each piece of paper used in a meeting has the equivalent carbon emissions of burning a 60W light bulb for 1 hour. As such, a meeting of 10 people will typically have emissions of around 1.6kg of CO2 - equivalent to driving a typical 4x4 for 6 miles," he continued.
The same meeting of 10 people, using Synanto's MeetingPod would have a carbon footprint of only 0.2kg of CO2. But what is a MeetingPod and how does it work? Wickett explains:
"The MeetingPod is a paperless, electronic meeting system, which is much more energy efficient than using paper, and uses a fraction of the energy used by laptops. It holds all the meeting information that each attendee can view on their separate 'MeetingPod'. This means that they do not have to print agendas, minutes from the last meeting, or any other information relevant to that meeting. Even separate presentations can be viewed on the built in screen making meeting room tables more efficient and easier to layout and use."
The MeetingPod also benefits from solving a huge range of common communication problems often encountered in meetings like making available an agreed set of minutes before everyone leaves the room.
It even e-mails a full record of the event to every attendee at the end of the meeting along with contact details for further follow up.
"Venues are starting to look at their Corporate Social Responsibility policies very closely," continues Wickett. "By not having a strategy to reduce their carbon footprint, many meeting and conference venues are telling us that they are starting to lose business".
The benefits, though, do not end there. The MeetingPod gives venues the ability to communicate directly with the individual users with whom they have little contact. Meeting attendees can now receive relevant information about the venue, which can be tailored to each meeting with the potential to be a powerful new marketing channel for the venue.
Notes to Editor:
A 3 hour meeting of 10 people is estimated to produce around:
- Lighting: 300Wh
- 50 pieces of paper: 3kWh
- 2 hours using a low energy LCD projector: 500Wh
- Total Energy: 3.8kWh
- Total CO2 emissions: 1.6kg (0.43kg of CO2 for each kWh)
- Lighting: 300Wh
- 10 MeetingPods: 240Wh (each MeetingPod requires 8W/hr)
- Total CO2 emissions: 0.23kg (0.43kg of CO2 for each kWh)
