Case Study: United States Forest Service achieves $400K in cost savings and 300 metric tons CO2 reduction with iCohere

Supporting Sustainability with Hybrid Conferences

The US Forest Service (USFS) needed a way to run its annual Sustainable Operations Summit that would include widely dispersed presenters and remote attendees, reduce travel and greenhouse gas emissions, and overcome limits in its internal video teleconferencing (which supported only about 25 sites). To meet complex audio/video and accessibility needs without building a new system from scratch, USFS partnered with iCohere and its online collaboration platform and secure Internet-based broadcasting services to create a hybrid conference model.

iCohere linked to USFS’s internal video system and provided a website for real-time and on-demand viewing (with captions, chat/Q&A, uploads, and archived recordings), plus on-site coordination and support. The hybrid approach enabled over 500 participants, 38 sessions (about 900 hours of content), and more remote than local presenters, while saving roughly $300,000 in travel and $100,000 in facility costs and avoiding about 300 metric tons of CO2; iCohere’s platform delivered the interactive, accessible experience that made those gains possible.

US Forest Service

Jim McGinnis

Conference Coordinator