Impacts of virtual communication on business travel: the Finnish perspective

Objectives The main objectives of this study were to compare the manager’s perceptions of costs and benefits of business travel with virtual communications, to understand companies’ perspective and preferences to business travel and virtual communications in terms of cost and environmental implications and to identify the impacts of virtual communication on business travel in Finland/Finnish companies. Summary During the last decades virtual communication has improved and the methods for virtual communication play a big role in today’s business environment. While better methods for communication in the virtual environment have been adopted in companies around the globe, also the amount of business travel have increased significantly. This thesis identifies from a managerial perspective what impacts the virtual communication has on travel. The study focuses on the perceptions of managers at four international companies operating in Finland. Conclusions Virtual and physical methods for interaction are both available in today’s business environment. The viewpoints of the managers interviewed for the thesis, as well as the scholarly literature in the field, supports the complementary relationship between the two, as both have the potential to benefit the companies from economic, social and environmental aspects

The environmental impact of service oriented companies

The service sector is not traditionally seen as an emission intensive sector with a great environmental impact. The service sector is, however, economically a large and fast-growing sector and consequently the absolute emissions will grow. Even though a shift to a more service-oriented economy decreases the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity per unit GDP it does not in itself imply that the GHG emissions would decrease in absolute terms. To improve the environmental performance of service oriented companies, the negative environmental impacts must be identified and measured. A framework mentioned in several guidelines for studying the environmental impact, is the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. Based on the LCA framework, a methodology called carbon footprinting has been developed to assess the environmental impact. The carbon footprint methodology is broadly used by companies and organisations to examine and understand the GHG emissions occurring from products, services and processes. The overall objective of the study is to get an overview of the environmental impact of service oriented companies, focusing on climate change. The aim is to find the relevant components for calculating the carbon footprint of a service oriented company and determine which activities and variables that stand for most of the emissions. The methodology used in this study is the life cycle assessment (LCA). Two applications of the methodology; input-output LCA (IO-LCA) and hybrid LCA, have been applied. The assessment follows the GHG protocol for boundary definition and guidelines. A case study was performed on one digital service creation company located in Helsinki, Finland. The included environmental impacts are limited to climate change and CO2 equivalents, which is the definition and unit of carbon footprint in this study. The study compares three different LCA models and analyses the difference between national and international models. Additionally, the relationship between costs and emissions are analysed. Previous research suggests that the service sector should focus on office premises and business travel as these in general are perceived to cause most of the emissions. This study, however, shows that such generalisation cannot be made for service oriented companies as they represent a large variety of businesses. The three different models gave surprisingly similar results, mostly due to modest sized office premises and lack of detailed process information for the hybrid LCA. In the case study company business travel stands for most of the emissions (29 %). Commuting does not cause significant emissions and the remaining categories have similar magnitudes of emissions. The total emissions are approximately 1 400 tCO2eq. Compared to previous studies the studied company’s emissions are lower than average. No direct correlation between costs and emissions was found

Business travel - The social practices surrounding meetings

A considerable amount of travel domestically and internationally is undertaken by 'briefcase travellers' in the pursuit of business meetings. Such business travel is deemed costly to the economy. This paper examines the potential factors at work in the social construction of meetings and their associated travel. What are the different motivations and expectations in attending a meeting? What are the actual consequences (positive and negative) in attending? How can the organisation of a meeting impact upon the wider organisation of activity in time and space of the individuals involved? How does the process of meeting attendance, including travel, unfold? How might ICTs impact on the social practices associated with meetings? The paper offers a critical assessment of such issues that may underlie and influence the nature and extent of business travel. It goes on to define the notion of excess briefcase travel as a means to frame the challenge for policymakers, employers and employees in potentially reducing such travel and the associated research challenge to establish empirical understandings. The paper examines literatures from transport studies as well as other territories of social science including mobilities research. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

Smarter choices - changing the way we travel

Summary: In recent years, there has been growing interest in a range of initiatives, which are now widelydescribed as 'soft' transport policy measures. These seek to give better information and opportunities,aimed at helping people to choose to reduce their car use while enhancing the attractiveness ofalternatives. They are fairly new as part of mainstream transport policy, mostly relativelyuncontroversial, and often popular. They include:. Workplace and school travel plans;. Personalised travel planning, travel awareness campaigns, and public transport information andmarketing;. Car clubs and car sharing schemes;. Teleworking, teleconferencing and home shopping.This report draws on earlier studies of the impact of soft measures, new evidence from the UK andabroad, case study interviews relating to 24 specific initiatives, and the experience of commercial,public and voluntary stakeholders involved in organising such schemes. Each of the soft factors isanalysed separately, followed by an assessment of their combined potential impact.The assessment focuses on two different policy scenarios for the next ten years. The 'high intensity'scenario identifies the potential provided by a significant expansion of activity to a much morewidespread implementation of present good practice, albeit to a realistic level which still recognisesthe constraints of money and other resources, and variation in the suitability and effectiveness of softfactors according to local circumstances. The 'low intensity' scenario is broadly defined as aprojection of the present (2003-4) levels of local and national activity on soft measures.The main features of the high intensity scenario would be. A reduction in peak period urban traffic of about 21% (off-peak 13%);. A reduction of peak period non-urban traffic of about 14% (off-peak 7%);. A nationwide reduction in all traffic of about 11%.These projected changes in traffic levels are quite large (though consistent with other evidence onbehavioural change at the individual level), and would produce substantial reductions in congestion.However, this would tend to attract more car use, by other people, which could offset the impact ofthose who reduce their car use unless there are measures in place to prevent this. Therefore, thoseexperienced in the implementation of soft factors locally usually emphasise that success depends onsome or all of such supportive policies as re-allocation of road capacity and other measures toimprove public transport service levels, parking control, traffic calming, pedestrianisation, cyclenetworks, congestion charging or other traffic restraint, other use of transport prices and fares, speedregulation, or stronger legal enforcement levels. The report also records a number of suggestionsabout local and national policy measures that could facilitate the expansion of soft measures.The effects of the low intensity scenario, in which soft factors are not given increased policy prioritycompared with present practice, are estimated to be considerably less than those of the high intensityscenario, including a reduction in peak period urban traffic of about 5%, and a nationwide reductionin all traffic of 2%-3%. These smaller figures also assume that sufficient other supporting policies areused to prevent induced traffic from eroding the effects, notably at peak periods and in congestedconditions. Without these supportive measures, the effects could be lower, temporary, and perhapsinvisible.Previous advice given by the Department for Transport in relation to multi-modal studies was that softfactors might achieve a nationwide traffic reduction of about 5%. The policy assumptionsunderpinning this advice were similar to those used in our low intensity scenario: our estimate isslightly less, but the difference is probably within the range of error of such projections.The public expenditure cost of achieving reduced car use by soft measures, on average, is estimated atabout 1.5 pence per car kilometre, i.e. £15 for removing each 1000 vehicle kilometres of traffic.Current official practice calculates the benefit of reduced traffic congestion, on average, to be about15p per car kilometre removed, and more than three times this level in congested urban conditions.Thus every £1 spent on well-designed soft measures could bring about £10 of benefit in reducedcongestion alone, more in the most congested conditions, and with further potential gains fromenvironmental improvements and other effects, provided that the tendency of induced traffic to erodesuch benefits is controlled. There are also opportunities for private business expenditure on some softmeasures, which can result in offsetting cost savings.Much of the experience of implementing soft factors is recent, and the evidence is of variable quality.Therefore, there are inevitably uncertainties in the results. With this caveat, the main conclusion isthat, provided they are implemented within a supportive policy context, soft measures can besufficiently effective in facilitating choices to reduce car use, and offer sufficiently good value formoney, that they merit serious consideration for an expanded role in local and national transportstrategy.AcknowledgementsWe gratefully acknowledge the many contributions made by organisations and individuals consultedas part of the research, and by the authors of previous studies and literature reviews which we havecited. Specific acknowledgements are given at the end of each chapter.We have made extensive use of our own previous work including research by Lynn Sloman funded bythe Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 on the traffic impact of soft factors and localtransport schemes (in part previously published as 'Less Traffic Where People Live'); and by SallyCairns and Phil Goodwin as part of the research programme of TSU supported by the Economic andSocial Research Council, and particularly research on school and workplace travel plans funded bythe DfT (and managed by Transport 2000 Trust), on car dependence funded by the RAC Foundation,on travel demand analysis funded by DfT and its predecessors, and on home shopping funded byEUCAR. Case studies to accompany this report are available at: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/archive/00001233

Telepsychiatry

Mental illness affects 18% of American adults and 8.0% of American children. Untreated mental illness can increase mortality, influence treatment of other conditions, and impose unnecessary burdens on individuals, families, and communities. Despite the prevalence and burdens of untreated mental illness, there are still numerous financial, social, and organizational barriers to the availability, utilization and quality of mental health services. In the last two decades, many efforts have been made to improve healthcare access through legal and regulatory overhauls, health insurance reform, electronic health system infrastructure expansion, and development of new models of care. These efforts are perhaps most easily observed through the implementation of telehealth and telemedicine. Telehealth is an umbrella term indicating the use of technology for the provision of healthcare, health administration, and health education while telemedicine is a more specific term referring to the use of technology for the delivery of healthcare across distances. While telemedicine is used in almost all subspecialties, implementation and research are more developed in some specialties than in others. Research on telepsychiatry shows that 1) telepsychiatry can be used to effectively diagnose and treat a variety of mental illnesses in a number of populations in many locations; 2) telepsychiatry has the potential to be a cost effective alternative to treatment as usual for patients, providers, and communities; 3) telemental health can function successfully within the legal and regulatory landscape in United States; 4) the technology for telemental health is already available and continually improving; 5) There are resources available to facilitate the use of telemental health by patients, providers and healthcare organizations. Telepsychiatry has the potential to improve access to mental health services by connecting patients with the right providers, reducing the costs of receiving and providing mental healthcare, lowering social barriers that prevent individuals from seeking and providers from offering care, and facilitating organizational practices and goals. This paper summarizes published data concerning the clinical, financial, legal and regulatory, and technological aspects of telepsychiatry and explores how telepsychiatry might be used to improve the availability, utilization, and quality of mental health services in the United States

A Systematic Review of The Impact of Telehealth Utilization in the United States of America’s Healthcare System on the Environment

This study is designed to investigate the impact of telehealth utilization in the United States of America’s healthcare system on the environment to inform both healthcare and environmental policies. This study followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic review analysis. As part of the literature search, and the selection of  the articles, publications, and papers for the study’s analysis; the data collection procedure considered the first and second authors of the completed simultaneous electronic and ancestral searches for peer-reviewed articles by using these online databases, which includes: Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science, Greenfile, and Google scholar as well as advanced Google scholar for all articles in the English language that evaluated the impact of telemedicine on the environment. With the help of Boolean search technique and experts’ reviews, 20 articles were included in this study. This study finds that some of the types of telecommunication methods use in healthcare system include the following services: Body Area Networks (BANs), video-conferencing, website, telephone consultations, and other mobile application technology. In the literature, it was observed that telehealth utilization rapidly expanded during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and further continues to provide critical access to health care services to patients within and outside United States of America. Again, it was underscored in this study that some of the positive effects of telehealth use include but not limited to the following: (1) reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from both patients and staff reduced travels, (2) reduction in waste production associated with each consultation through reduced patient and staff travel, (3) reduction in greenhouse gas and waste product associated with reduced equipment use, particularly through the reduction in raw materials needed, (4) air pollutant emission savings, and (5) reduction in sanitation required per consultation. Above all, some of the negative effects of telehealth use include but not limited to the following: (1) increased energy use associated with greater digitization, (2) The expansion of digital health increase demand for devices contributing to the environmental burden of electronics, (3) Inadequate resources to effectively handle e-waste leads to pollution of local environments, creating significant health risks, (4)  the production and disposal of wearable technologies, robotics and devices used to facilitate telehealth (i.e. smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.) cause environmental degradation, and (5) Raw materials (such as—iron, aluminum, gold, mercury, cyanide, etc.) required to produce telehealth technologies or devices  require large mining operations leading to land and environmental degradation. Keywords: Telehealth, Environment, Digital Health, Video-Conferencing, Telemedicine, Healthcare System, Utilization, Technologies, Greenhouse-Gas, Pollution, and Emissions DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/14-1-06 Publication date: February 28th 202

Kerosene prices and socio-economic change

It is highly probable that future air traffic will shrink due to higher fuel prices and inacceptable ecological pollution. Consequently, international trade will become deglobalized, giving way to more regionalized exchanges especially when flexible demands have to be met or "just in-timeproduction systems have to be maintained. The thinning out of passenger flight schedules will particularly hurt peripheral locations and very large countries, and will have deep repercussions of tourism, labor markets and transnational organizations. While more transspatial communication will be transferred from in-person encounters to technically mediated channels, there is a danger of losing problem solving capacities where face-to-face interaction is necessary: e. g. in processes of international contact initiation, teamwork building, or negotiation

Carbon emission savings and short-term health care impacts from telemedicine: An evaluation in epilepsy

Objective: Health systems make a sizeable contribution to national emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. The UK National Health Service is committed to being a net zero emitter by 2040, and a potential contribution to this target could come from reductions in patient travel. Achieving this will require actions at many levels. We sought to determine potential savings and risks over the short term from telemedicine through virtual clinics. Methods: During the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-2-CoV) pandemic, scheduled face-to-face epilepsy clinics at a specialist site were replaced by remote teleclinics. We used a standard methodology applying conversion factors to calculate emissions based on the total saved travel distance. A further conversion factor was used to derive emissions associated with electricity consumption to deliver remote clinics from which net savings could be calculated. Patients’ records and clinicians were interrogated to identify any adverse clinical outcomes. Results: We found that enforced telemedicine delivery for over 1200 patients resulted in the saving of ~224 000 km of travel with likely avoided emissions in the range of 35 000–40 000 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) over a six and half month period. Emissions arising directly from remote delivery were calculated to be <200 kg CO2e (~0.5% of those for travel), representing a significant net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Only one direct adverse outcome was identified, with some additional benefits identified anecdotally. Significance: The use of telemedicine can make a contribution toward reduced emissions in the health care sector and, in the delivery of specialized epilepsy services, had minimal adverse clinical outcomes over the short term. However, these outcomes will likely vary with clinic locations, medical specialties and conditions