Today, Genesys, a multimedia online collaboration service, released its annual Earth Day survey, pulsing 18,000 customers on environmental issues and concerns in the workplace. This year’s survey showed an increase in attention to environment consciousness and an overall increase in virtual meetings since last year’s survey.

The most effective Green behaviors are those that provide benefits to the people doing them as well as to the environment,” said Denise Persson, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Genesys. “Virtual meetings that take place by phone and web conference really started as part of a movement to save costs both in dollars and environmental pollution, and reduced travel continues to be one of the biggest impacts we can make on our environment. But now, people have embraced virtual meetings as a way to manage work and personal life more on their own terms, mixing work and play in a way previous generations never imagined.

Virtual Meetings on the Rise

• 87% or respondents indicated that their company now uses phone or web conferencing when communicating to employees offsite.

• 60% of respondents said they’d rather participate in a phone or web conference while they were on vacation, rather then missing the meeting altogether and not having their opinions voiced.

Environmental Consciousness in the Workplace

• 56% of respondents believe that their company understands and has taken an initiative towards being more conscious of the environment in the workplace since last Earth Day.

• 62% of respondents indicated that their company has modified company policy to reduce business travel.