In the Netherlands alone, almost twelve billion Euros per year is spent on transport to and from meetings. For a large part, this is wasted money because companies could much more often make use of video and call conferencing.

So says Professor Erik Andriessen of the TU Delft in his farewell speech on Friday. The Professor in industrial and organization psychology states that in the Netherlands, 46 percent of the workers are at least several hours per week on the road because of their work, this on top of any travelling time to and from work. Four percent of the workers even spend more than ten hours per week travelling to meetings.

A few years ago, that was only 1.5 percent. However, during that period the percentage of so-called teleworkers has remained around two percent. "In other words, people do travel more and teleworking remains unfashionable. This results in loss of time, costs and environmental pollution", Andriessen argues. The Professor estimates that the travelling time to meetings will reduce by at least seventeen percent if businesses organize video and call conferences more often.

Many businesses are reluctant to do so because they consider the social distance too large in such meetings. Furthermore, certain subjects are supposedly more difficult to discuss when using video and video conferencing would take place at the expense of the development of trust. Andriessen disputes these ideas in his farewell speech.