Complete life-cycle assessment of the energy/CO2 costs of videoconferencing vs face-to-face meetings

While video conferencing is often viewed as a greener alternative to physically travelling for face-to-face meetings, it has its own energy and carbon dioxide costs. In this paper we present the first analysis of the total cost of videoconferencing, including network plus videoconferencing equipment operating costs, and lifecycle assessment (LCA) of equipment costs, and compare these costs to the total cost of transport for face-to-face meetings. While the costs of these meeting forms depend on many factors such as distance travelled, meeting duration, and the technologies used, we find that videoconferencing takes at most 7% of the energy/carbon of a face-to-face meeting. We analyze the sensitivity of the costs to various factors and consider trends in energy and carbon usage to predict how the comparison might change in the future.