Protecting the environment used to be seen as a cause worth pursuing if the price tag wasn’t too high. Now sustainability is a core business goal – not just to build customer loyalty and attract talent, but to improve the bottom line.

Going green is a business imperative that looks beyond strengthening customer engagement and enhancing the corporate brand. The most successful sustainability practices also yield hard savings in the form of reduced energy and other resource costs.

Allstream can help turn your business communications green. By combining our IP Connectivity, Collaboration and Mobility solutions, you can give employees the flexibility to work from home, cutting down on commuting and business travel. With more people communicating remotely, you also use less power, heat and water at the office – and lower your overall real estate needs. And with our Hosting solutions, you can further reduce your energy and space requirements by storing data in one of our energy-efficient offsite facilities.

It all adds up to a greener workplace and a crucial differentiator, whether you’re a consumer-facing company, a B2B leader or a public sector organization.

We help you tackle the tough questions: How much can you save by greening your network infrastructure? How important is an eco-sensitive profile in your sector or market? Are your peers getting recognition for their sustainability efforts in this area – or do you have an opportunity to take the lead? Allstream has the answers – and the green communications expertise to help reduce your corporate footprint while meeting your business goals.

Go green while helping people work more efficiently.

Expanding your network to include remote and mobile workers not only increases productivity – it also reduces fuel consumption, cuts hydrocarbon emissions and helps alleviate traffic congestion.

• Give people the tools to share information and files, and to access their voice and email messages, without having to travel to the office.
• Reduce the number of meetings outside the workplace – and limit costly, energy-consuming business travel – with teleconferencing and other collaboration applications.

Strengthen ties with your key stakeholders.

More and more people expect the organizations they do business with to be exemplars of environmental responsibility. You need to demonstrate your commitment to sustainability with unequivocally green initiatives – including in areas such as communications.

By showing customers or constituents what you’re doing – perhaps even surprising them with eco-conscious angles they may not have considered – you deepen loyalty and engagement and build wider recognition for your achievements and your brand.

Increase your appeal in recruiting top talent.

A progressive green communications strategy will help attract and retain talent, especially among younger employees who want their workplaces to be as green as possible. Many will appreciate the flexibility to maintain a better work-life balance by connecting via the corporate network from home.

Extend the green effect to your bottom line.

As with the best sustainable practices, greening your communications with Allstream can actually save you money. When people can work and collaborate effectively wherever they are, decisions get made faster, projects get wrapped up sooner, new products and initiatives get launched more promptly – in short, your business runs better, and that translates into better financial performance.

Enjoy additional green dividends:

• Reduce travel expenses with videoconferencing and collaboration tools.
• Eliminate redundant meeting spaces and reduce overall real estate costs by supporting teleworkers and implementing virtual meeting capabilities.
• Improve employee retention with flexible work options, lowering the costs of recruiting, hiring and training.
• Reduce energy costs by upgrading to less power-hungry equipment and systems.
• Decrease real estate and electricity costs – along with the total cost of technology ownership – by shifting your server needs to an energy-efficient hosting facility.
• Future-proof your organization against rising utility costs and energy shortages by adapting greener policies now.