Southdale Homes, Video Conferencing

Video conferencing cuts carbon footprint for building firm

It’s not always easy for a building firm to be environmentally friendly but there is one Yorkshire company working hard at being just that.

Southdale Homes, which is based in Halifax, has formed an eco-team to find ways to lessen the company’s impact on the environment and it has selected Pennine Telecom to provide a video conferencing system to cut down the amount of travelling between its head office and its regional office in Darlington.

“We are trying to minimise our carbon footprint,” said Lee Argyle, the IT manager for Southdale Homes.

 “It’s not always easy for a company such as ours to be eco-friendly because, basically, we dig holes in the ground and build homes.

“The eco-team looks at all different ways to be more environmentally friendly and we decided that one of the ways was to do more ‘electronic travel’.

“Our business is expanding in the North East and it was requiring a lot of travel. With the video conferencing system we can save carbon emissions and, also, save a large amount of management time which would otherwise be spent on the motorway.”

Lee believes that the quality of video conferencing is now good enough to more than justify the cost. “We are taking it over our ISDN line and the system works fine. It is early days but as people become more used to it and appreciate its savings I am sure we will use it more and more.”

He is also hoping that, in addition to using the Polycom system for internal use, they can start using if for conference calls with clients. “This is all the more important for us, because of the growth in the North East.”

The Polycom system links with the company’s data system so that during a conference, in real time, participants in each location can simultaneously look at PC displays of diagrams and plans.

Southdale Homes has about 25 development sites around Yorkshire and the North East at the moment and the system is not yet planned for them – although who knows what solutions the eco-team comes up with in the future?