Cisco offers relief from carbon footprint guilt

So you spend your nights laying in bed worrying about the carbon footprint of your network but can’t bring yourself to start

rolling out so-called “green” technologies. Well, never-you-fear, Cisco has a plan. Neutralize your carbon footprint guilt by planting trees! Or better still, let Cisco plant them for you in exchange for trying out WebEx. The company announced that from April 21 through May 31, Cisco would plant 100 trees for each 100 free WebEx trials that businesses complete. This is in addition to the free tree that WebEx will plant as part of its two-year-old tree-planting program.

Businesses login at www.webex.com/go/zerocarbon to sign up for the special WebEx Meeting Center free trial. They then hold two business meetings online and WebEx will plant a tree in the businesses’ honor through Carbonfund.org. Again, for every 100 free trials, Cisco promises to plan an additional 100 trees.

Purchasing wind credits seems to be the standard fare for businesses that don’t want to – or can’t – offset their non-green business practices (would that be called brown business practices?). But companies don’t need to think inside the corrugated cardboard box about it. A site called EcoBusinesLinks.com has charted out a whole bunch of other methods for offsetting carbon output — planting trees via Carbonfund.org is among the ideas.

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