Employing SMS Gateways for a Greener Tomorrow (…and less trash)

SMS gateways, when used in conjunction with ‘Green IT’ endeavors, can ensure that your business reduces its current carbon emissions. But is it better than paper?

You might be surprised to learn that U.S. pulp mills currently consume more than 12, 000 acres of the earth’s forests each year. According to median figures, each individual in the United States consumes about 730 pounds of paper each year. And while the argument exists that, surely, paper is being recycled, you might find it interesting to note that 90% of the paper you use to print and write on, comes directly from trees. These figures can be topped off with the fact that one day’s deforestation emissions equal the emissions produced by 8 million people flying to New York, and not from nearby Massachusetts. What has paper got to do with SMS gateways and green computing?

Doing More for the Environment

Everything, really. Imagine a world where, if our paper consumption declined, we could save most or all of the more than 500 million trees and 12 billion gallons of oil it takes to produce the paper we need, most of which gets wasted. Now is perhaps the best time for U.S. businesses to look for alternatives with regards to paper usage; alternatives such as text messaging through SMS gateways.

The fact of the matter is that using SMS or text messaging can ensure that your business’ carbon footprint and consumption of paper is reduced dramatically. No more paper wastage and environmental compliance. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? In terms of the environment, definitely, but what about the money factor? SMS gateways take care of that, too…

First off, let’s have a look at SMS text messaging from the point of view of the consumer. The amount of text messages sent each month by the average American consumer has surpassed the amount of voice calls made, and seems to be continuing trend. Additionally, a number of research reports indicate that Americans would rather forgo alcohol and even social networking than text messaging; the 160-character text message has become one of America’s favorite method of electronic communication. SMS gateways make text messaging possible.

The above can be an indication why America’s response rates to text-based marketing is of the highest in the world, at 12%. Could this be the reason why mobile marketing spend jumped by more than 20% in 2009?

Note: Effective SMS text marketing requires that contacts opt-in to receive marketing communication from you. This ensures a qualified audience. Additionally, ensure that your target audience has opted for the content you want to present them with.

SMS Gateways & Green IT

While text message communication through SMS gateways will help to reduce your paper usage, thereby assisting in the preservation of forests (that assist with CO2 offsetting), it has to be taken into account that environmentally-friendly computing is also a necessity, especially since global computing emissions equal the amount of emissions produced by air travel (about 2% of global emissions). These emissions can quite simply be reduced by investing in ENERGY STAR-compliant technologies and ensuring that systems automatically enter sleep mode when they are not being used.

It is equally critical to ensure that the applications or application programming interfaces used are those that will require the least system resources when SMS text messages are sent and received (the more work a computer system has to perform, the more resource intensive it will be). Companies are therefore urged to analyze their current systems as well as the various advantages offered by the various application programming interfaces for transmission of SMS messages through SMS gateways.

Read more about the application programming interfaces and SMS text messaging applications by navigating to our SMS gateways page.

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