Across California, counties are understanding the importance of leveraging broadband (or high-speed Internet) to attract new businesses and create jobs, improve health care and education, and connect residents to new opportunities. But have you considered how broadband might help you meet your environmental goals?  Broadband-enabled applications such as telehealth, e-government, and precision agriculture can help improve healthcare while saving car trips, improve efficiency and access to government services, and help reduce the use of precious resources like water. 

The Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium, with support from the California Emerging Technology Fund and Valley Vision, has released a new report detailing the environmental benefits of broadband deployment. The report, titled “Broadband and the Environment: Technology Strategies for a Greener California,” finds that deploying broadband networks across our counties, towns and farms reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and stimulates growth.

The report suggests six key areas where local officials can lead the policy discussion:

E-GOVERNMENT: E-Government allows Californians to obtain government services online. Putting things like vehicle registration and tax filings online saves time, money and travel-related pollution. Last year alone, E-Government saved the federal government $64 million in paper costs.

TELEHEALTH: High-quality healthcare can be delivered via telecommunications technologies if broadband capacity and deployment allow it. Health assessments, patient monitoring, and data management can all be done remotely, which allows for decreases in wait times, total costs, VMT (vehicle miles traveled) and more. Each online health appointment eliminates 95% of the GHG emissions of a typical drive to the doctor’s office.

TELEWORKING: Working remotely and video conferencing not only reduce GHG emissions and business costs, they grant employees freedom and increase productivity in doing so. In fact, one day of telework per week by all U.S. employees would add $25 billion in economic value by 2020.

PRECISION AGRICULTURE: Real-time data can help farmers monitor and manage plants, soil and irrigation systems. Internet-enabled precision agriculture can maximize the productivity of California’s fields and livestock by 20% to 70% while minimizing water use by 20% to 30%.

SMART BUILDING: Building management systems use technology to control usage patterns for heating, cooling, lighting, and more. In Northern California alone, the 481 most efficient buildings saved $148 million in annual utility costs and reduced GHG emissions equivalent to 50,800 homes.

SMART GRID & ELECTRIC VEHICLES: When energy-saving electric vehicles operate in tandem with a broadband-enabled ‘smart grid’ that detects and reacts to changes in usage, the result is a reliable, efficient and low-maintenance electrical grid.

This report is intended to empower regional leaders to drive broadband deployment efforts in their jurisdictions. Research shows that investing in broadband deployment allows California to meet its GHG emissions goals while catalyzing economic growth. These six action areas are exciting to imagine, but they can only become a reality with fast, reliable and affordable Internet service everywhere – from the kitchen table to the tomato field.