Upgrade Your Phone System to Go Green

Upgrade Your Phone System to Go Green

For businesses today, going green is more than a trend. With a wide range of benefits, including increased consumer support and reduced energy costs, making a conscious effort to reduce negative environmental impact is just good business. What’s more, becoming an environmentally friendly business is no longer difficult or expensive to achieve. By simply making green changes to your everyday practices, you can achieve a smaller footprint without disrupting operations. For example, choosing to upgrade your phone system can have a huge impact. Here’s how:

You may not realize it, but your desktop phones are horrible for the environment. Implementing Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Unified Communications (UC) in your business can simultaneously improve both efficiency and environmentalism, meaning double the benefits.

VoIP Requires Less Hardware

Your plain old telephone system (POTS) requires a lot of stuff. From the plastic used to make handsets, to underground copper cable systems, to switchboards and satellites, a lot of material and energy goes into communication that we take for granted. POTS require upgrades every two years or less, on average, which results in a lot of hardware being dumped in landfills. In comparison, VoIP requires much less investment in physical devices. Because it uses your existing internet connection, and doesn’t require a dedicated handset — your telephone hardware could consist of as little as just one VoIP router. With options such as softphones on desktops or laptops, or integration with employees’ personal mobile phones with a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, you can say goodbye to hardware clutter.

VoIP Cuts Down on Travel

One of the hidden impacts of business landlines is that they tether your employees to their desks. Even if you offer flexible work options such as work-from-home, it can be hard for employees to telecommute when they need to make business calls. With VoIP and UC, your workers can make professional calls, conduct meetings, and work on projects remotely, cutting down on carbon emissions from commuting and travel. With options such as file sharing and conference calling, you can eliminate the need for physical proximity to get maximum productivity from your employees.

VoIP and UC Saves on Business Costs

Reduced hardware means reduced energy bills, but there are even more ways you can save when you upgrade your phone system. With a VoIP system, you can implement paperless faxing, where incoming documents are deposited into your email rather than printed on paper. Combined with file sharing options with unified communications, you can drastically reduce or even eliminate the need for paper. When the average business uses 3.6 tons of paper every year, the impact of internet-based communications really adds up.

Making the switch from landlines to VoIP is more than a technological upgrade. Whether a VoIP system hosted on your business’s premises or one that is cloud-based makes more sense for your business needs, ditching your POTS is a huge step towards becoming clean and green. And when being environmentally friendly benefits everyone, it just makes sense.