Aggressively adopting telepresence can help the world's largest companies save billions of dollars in travel expenses while significantly reducing their carbon footprints.

At the same time, they can enjoy a quick ROI of 15 months or less, according to "The Telepresence Revolution,"  a new study authored by research firm Verdantix on behalf of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The report, sponsored by AT&T, studied 15 large companies that were early telepresence adopters, including PepsiCo, Accenture and Microsoft.

"Telepresence is a new and extraordinary development," said CDP President Paul Dickinson in a telephone interview. "It opens up opportunities to have economic growth while reducing emissions. If countries like India and China develop the same infrastructure that we have, emissions will be a disaster."

Telepresence, a high-definition, real-time videoconferencing technology, offers developing countries a tool to "leapfrog" outdated Western-style transportation systems while still growing their economies, Dickinson said.

The CDP, known for its work on behalf of investors in getting the world's largest companies to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, and most recently water use, wanted to examine how pioneering companies are using telepresence, with the belief that businesses can and will lead the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Early adopters gravitated toward telepresence for a few key reasons: the desire to reduce air travel expenses; improving executives' and employees' productivity and work-life balance; reducing carbon footprints; and improving decision making and relationships with customers and suppliers.

Researchers estimated that an individual company with four telepresence rooms could avoid 2,271 metric tons of emissions over five years, while saving hundreds of business trips annually. If U.S. and U.K. companies with more than $1 billion in revenues were to implement strong telepresence programs, they could generate nearly $19 billion in economywide financial benefits by 2020 and avoid nearly 5.5 million metric tons of emissions.

The report estimated that firms could justify investing in a telepresence system with six screen units if they normally make approximately 4-6 international trips and 25-30 domestic trips every month, based on the total cost of ownership for the telepresence units.

Lack of awareness or foot-dragging are among the largest barriers to more widespread telepresence adoption, Dickinson said, but he advised companies not to underestimate the upside of the technology, which stands in contrast to other video conferencing technologies that suffered from quality and operation issues.

"Look, look again," he said of telepresence, "and then look again."

Image CC licensed by Flickr user Smart Cities.