Green Telecom Part VI: Verizon a telecom leader

Verizon’s approach involves making sure the subject matter experts it includes in its account teams are well-versed on the “green imperative,” Kimm said.

“All of our teams have specialized folks in them, whether its security services or advanced voice technologies, collaboration or IT solutions like hosting and virtual desktops,” he said. “Those teams are experts on their specific technologies, but they have also been trained, everybody has, on the ‘green imperative’ and the opportunity it represents.”

The challenge then is two-fold: try to sell to more customers, but also try to sell Verizon’s traditional customers on what new, more environmentally friendly technologies can do for them, Kimm said.

Teleworking is one obvious option, and Verizon’s approach is to create remote access solutions both for road warriors and for home workers, Kimm said. “We need to get people out of the traditional commute and traditional thinking that ‘I need to provide an office and a desk for every employee and heat and cool that office space and provide lights,’” he added.

Distributed call centers provide an opportunity for businesses to retain good employees, lower the contact center costs and provide better business continuity. “There is a green benefit that falls out of that, but there are other benefits as well,” Kimm said.

Right now, the No. 1 issue on the minds of U.S. corporations trying to go green is the data center, he said.

“There is a shift on, and the phenomenon we see first — because many of our traditional buyers of Verizon services are going to be in IT and communications fields — is that the green project on the top of the list revolves around data centers and making them run more effectively,” Kimm said. “That can mean reducing the number of computers or servers to increase what we can with less space and cooling.”

There also is movement afoot to change the way the network is constructed, to make the equipment installed on customers’ premises smaller, Kimm said.

Many corporations are just now developing more formal approaches to going green, but most have had ad hoc efforts for some time, he said. What Verizon is trying to do is to help its customers address telecom network issues on a broader scale.