Teleconferencing is important business change

Written by Michael Feeley
Thursday, 01 February 2007
From href="http://www.hi-techscotland.com">Tech Scotland.

Scotland's leading environmental campaigners have called for increased investment in teleconferencing solutions, following the publication of figures released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, revealing that Scottish Ministers and Executive civil servants had racked up over 10,000 flights within Britain in the past year.

The figure reaches over 16,000 flights when other public agencies are included.

Friends of the Earth Scotland's Chief Executive, Duncan McLaren, said, "Domestic flights are almost always avoidable, so these figures are not only truly astonishing but will have resulted in a shocking amount of unnecessary climate pollution.

"When it comes to sustainable transport, the Executive needs to start practicing what it preaches. The money they are wasting on wrecking the climate while flying would be better off invested in rail passes and improved video-conferencing facilities.

"Flying is the fastest growing source of climate pollution yet millions of pounds of taxpayers' money is being used [through the Scottish Air Route Development Fund] to encourage even more. If the Executive was really serious about tackling climate change they'd curtail their flying addiction and axe this pollution-generating fund."

Dr Richard Dixon, Director of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Scotland, also called for increased use of technological alternatives. Speaking exclusively to Hi-Tech Scotland, Dixon said: "Video and phone conferencing are essential tools to combat rising climate change emissions. Every week I do at least one meeting by phone which would otherwise have required a 1000-mile round trip and we are currently trialing collaboration software to let us work together from multiple locations. In addition the advent of internet access on long-distance trains should help persuade businesses that flying within the UK mainland is a waste of your employees' time."The Executive should be setting a good example if they hope to convince the rest of us to make the right travel choices. The Scottish Executive clearly has the balance wrong, with flights within the Scottish mainland particularly hard to justify. They also appear to be paying over the odds for flights so there is doubly no excuse for choosing the plane over the train. Time waiting for planes and sitting staring out the window from 30,000ft is time wasted, time working on the train represent much better value for the tax payer."

Friends of the Earth say that carbon emissions from UK aviation increased by 11 per cent in 2004 alone and are estimated to increase four fold between 2000 and 2050.

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