{"id":63825,"date":"2026-10-19T12:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/?p=63825"},"modified":"2026-10-19T13:09:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:09:47","slug":"cutting-co2-in-2026-how-remote-assistance-and-smart-glasses-shrink-an-industrial-companys-carbon-footprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/news\/cutting-co2-in-2026-how-remote-assistance-and-smart-glasses-shrink-an-industrial-companys-carbon-footprint\/","title":{"rendered":"Cutting CO2 in 2026: How Remote Assistance and Smart Glasses Shrink an Industrial Company&#8217;s Carbon Footprint"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Industrial companies can lower their CO2 footprint by replacing on-site service trips with live video remote assistance, delivered through a phone, a tablet or hands-free <a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/products\/smart-glasses\/\">smart glasses<\/a>. A single service trip by air can emit well over 100 kg of CO2 for one seat. A video session that replaces it emits only a small fraction of that. Software such as Wideum\u2019s Remote Eye, together with Wideum\u2019s free CO2 calculator, lets a company estimate how many of those trips, and how much CO2, it could avoid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Updated: 19 October 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Industrial Companies Are Measuring CO2 in 2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Industrial companies are measuring CO2 in 2026 because business travel is one of the few emissions sources they can cut immediately, without waiting for a supplier or a utility to change.<\/strong> Scope 1 emissions come from owned vehicles and Scope 2 from purchased electricity. The decision to send an engineer on a flight or a long car journey, or not to, sits entirely within the company\u2019s own control. Travel for field service, audits, inspections and after-sales support falls under Scope 3, Category 6 (Business Travel) of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. That category covers air, rail, bus and car travel in vehicles the reporting company does not own or operate (GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Business Travel Emissions Actually Include<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Business travel emissions, under Category 6 of the GHG Protocol, include employee transport in third-party vehicles for work purposes: flights, trains, buses and cars. Companies may also include hotel stays.<\/strong> Commuting (Category 7) and company-owned fleets (Scope 1) are reported separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The GHG Protocol sets out three ways to calculate these emissions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Fuel-based method:<\/strong> actual fuel consumed by the transport provider.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Distance-based method:<\/strong> kilometres travelled multiplied by an emission factor per vehicle type.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Spend-based method:<\/strong> money spent on travel multiplied by a secondary emission factor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most companies start with the distance-based method because it only needs trip data they already hold in travel-expense or field-service systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Much CO2 Does a Single Service Trip Emit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A single flight booked for an on-site repair carries a real, measurable CO2 cost, even before hotel nights and ground transport are added.<\/strong> In 2019, passenger aviation emitted on average around 90 g of CO2 per revenue passenger-kilometre, 12% lower than in 2013 (ICCT, 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At that global average, a technician flying a 2,000 km round trip to reach a client site would generate roughly 180 kg of CO2 for that one seat. Treat this as a floor rather than a ceiling. Short flights are considerably more carbon-intensive per kilometre than the global average, so a typical short-haul service trip is likely to emit more. Multiply that by dozens of field engineers travelling several times a month, and travel quickly becomes one of the largest line items in a company\u2019s Scope 3 inventory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Remote Assistance Software Cuts Travel-Related CO2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Remote assistance software cuts travel-related CO2 by replacing the trip itself with a live video session, so the flight, the car journey and the hotel night simply do not happen.<\/strong> Wideum\u2019s Remote Eye connects a frontline technician with a remote expert. The technician can use a phone, a tablet or smart glasses, and the expert follows from a PC. The expert sees exactly what the technician sees and guides the repair step by step, without either side needing to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Wideum, its customers replace between 25% and 40% of their service trips with remote sessions on average. Its CO2 calculator conservatively assumes 25% (Wideum, CO2 Calculator for Service Travel).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TeamViewer, a different vendor in the broader remote-access category, shows what remote connectivity software can achieve at scale. Its 2023 CO2 study estimated that its users and customers avoided between 15.6 and 44.8 million tonnes of CO2 globally in 2022 by using its software instead of travelling. The realistic-scenario estimate was around 41 million tonnes, which TeamViewer equates to roughly 42,000 full round-trip flights between London and Tokyo on a Boeing 777-300ER. The study was carried out with Five Glaciers Consulting and critically reviewed by T\u00dcV S\u00dcD (TeamViewer, 2023 CO2 study). TeamViewer\u2019s product is different from Wideum\u2019s industrial video assistance software, but the figure shows the order of magnitude that travel-avoidance software, as a category, can reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Does Hardware Change the CO2 Impact: Smart Glasses vs Phones and Tablets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Smart glasses and phones or tablets avoid the same travel-related CO2 once a visit is replaced by remote video. Hands-free glasses extend that avoidance to tasks where a technician cannot safely hold a device.<\/strong> Remote Eye and Process Eye run on smartphones, tablets and leading smart glasses from brands such as <a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/realwear\/\">RealWear<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/vuzix\/\">Vuzix<\/a>, Epson and Rokid. The choice of device depends on the task, not on the emissions benefit, which is the same either way: the trip is cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><thead><tr><th>Approach<\/th><th>Travel required<\/th><th>Typical device<\/th><th>Hands-free<\/th><th>Best suited for<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>On-site visit<\/td><td>Yes, per incident<\/td><td>&#8211;<\/td><td>&#8211;<\/td><td>Physical repairs needing specialised tools on site<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Remote assistance via phone or tablet<\/td><td>No<\/td><td>Smartphone, tablet<\/td><td>No<\/td><td>Quick visual checks, simple guidance, audits<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Remote assistance via smart glasses \u2705 Winner<\/td><td>No<\/td><td>Smart glasses (e.g. Vuzix, RealWear, Moziware)<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Complex interventions, PPE environments, two-handed repairs<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Smart glasses are the most versatile option. They avoid the trip like any remote session, and they also cover cases a handheld device cannot, such as working inside a machine with both hands occupied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Common Mistakes When Trying to Cut Travel CO2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Most companies lose track of their travel-CO2 reduction effort by skipping the baseline measurement or assuming remote assistance requires new hardware.<\/strong> Three frequent problems and their fixes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Business travel stays invisible.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Problem: only Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are tracked, so business travel never appears in sustainability reporting.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution: apply the GHG Protocol\u2019s Category 6 distance-based method to existing travel-expense or field-service data (GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rollout waits for hardware.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Problem: teams assume remote assistance only works with smart glasses, which delays the rollout while hardware is purchased.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution: Remote Eye and Process Eye also run on standard phones and tablets, so a pilot can start the same week with devices already in the field.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Savings are never measured.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Problem: companies deploy remote assistance but never measure how many trips it actually avoided.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solution: record a baseline and compare it with post-rollout trip data before reporting any savings figure externally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Estimate Your Own CO2 Savings in 2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A company can estimate its avoided CO2 in a few minutes with Wideum\u2019s free <a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/assets\/co2-calculator\/\">CO2 calculator for service travel<\/a>.<\/strong> The calculator takes five inputs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>kilometres by plane per trip<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>kilometres by car per trip<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>hotel nights per trip<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>trips per technician per year<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>number of technicians who travel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From these it calculates current yearly emissions from service travel, and then the CO2, kilometres and equivalent trees avoided if 25% of those trips are replaced by remote sessions. Every emission factor is shown on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result is a business-case estimate, not an audited figure. It tells sustainability and operations teams whether the saving is worth measuring properly with their own boundaries, factors and data for Scope 3 reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Takeaways<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Per-trip emissions:<\/strong> a 2,000 km round-trip flight generates at least 180 kg of CO2 for one technician\u2019s seat, based on the 2019 passenger-aviation average of 90 g CO2 per revenue passenger-kilometre (ICCT, 2020). Short-haul flights are typically more carbon-intensive.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>TeamViewer study:<\/strong> its 2023 CO2 study, reviewed by T\u00dcV S\u00dcD, estimated that users and customers avoided 15.6\u201344.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022 through remote software instead of travel. The realistic-scenario figure was about 41 million tonnes, equivalent to around 42,000 full London\u2013Tokyo round-trip flights on a Boeing 777-300ER (TeamViewer, 2023 CO2 study).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Wideum customers:<\/strong> according to Wideum, customers replace 25\u201340% of their service trips with remote assistance on average (Wideum, CO2 Calculator for Service Travel).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>GHG Protocol Category 6:<\/strong> it covers air, rail, bus and car travel in third-party vehicles, optionally hotel stays, and offers fuel-based, distance-based and spend-based calculation methods (GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>No new hardware needed:<\/strong> Remote Eye and Process Eye run on the phones and tablets companies already use, as well as on smart glasses from RealWear, Vuzix, Epson, Rokid and others.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Wideum\u2019s calculator:<\/strong> the free CO2 calculator turns a company\u2019s current service travel into an estimated yearly CO2 saving from remote assistance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How much CO2 can remote assistance software save my company?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It depends on how many on-site visits you make today and how many you replace with video sessions. According to Wideum, its customers replace 25\u201340% of service trips on average. Wideum\u2019s CO2 calculator estimates the saving for your own travel figures using a conservative 25% assumption (Wideum, CO2 Calculator for Service Travel).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How much CO2 has remote-access software avoided at global scale?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TeamViewer\u2019s 2023 CO2 study found that its users and customers avoided 15.6\u201344.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022 through remote software use, with a realistic-scenario estimate of about 41 million tonnes (TeamViewer, 2023 CO2 study). This figure is specific to TeamViewer\u2019s own user base, not an industry-wide average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What counts as business travel emissions under the GHG Protocol?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Flights, trains, buses and cars used by employees for work in vehicles the company does not own or operate, with hotel stays as an optional addition. They are calculated with the fuel-based, distance-based or spend-based method (GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do I need smart glasses to reduce travel-related CO2, or can I use a phone?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No single device is required. Remote Eye and Process Eye run on standard phones and tablets as well as on smart glasses from RealWear, Vuzix, Epson, Rokid and others. All of them avoid the same travel-related CO2 once a visit is replaced by a remote session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does Wideum\u2019s CO2 calculator work?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You enter the plane and car kilometres of a typical trip, the hotel nights per trip, the trips each technician makes per year and the number of technicians who travel. The calculator multiplies these by its emission factors to give your yearly service-travel emissions. It then shows how much CO2 remote assistance would avoid if 25% of those trips were replaced by <a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/products\/remote-eye\/\">remote assistance<\/a> sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is the CO2 impact of remote assistance proven, or just a marketing claim?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For remote-access software as a category, TeamViewer\u2019s figures come from a study critically reviewed by T\u00dcV S\u00dcD (TeamViewer, 2023 CO2 study). Wideum\u2019s 25\u201340% figure describes what its own customers report. Wideum\u2019s calculator gives a gross estimate: it does not subtract the small footprint of the video session itself. Each company should verify its savings against its own baseline before reporting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/assets\/co2-calculator\/\">CO2 Calculator for Service Travel, Wideum<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/news\/measure-and-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-with-our-free-co2-calculator\">Measure Your Carbon Footprint with Our Free CO2 Calculator, Wideum<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2023 CO2 study, TeamViewer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>TeamViewer Climate Transition Plan 2024<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>CO2 Emissions from Commercial Aviation: 2013, 2018, and 2019, ICCT<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Category 6: Business Travel, GHG Protocol<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"headline\":\"Cutting CO2 in 2026: How Remote Assistance and Smart Glasses Shrink an Industrial Company's Carbon Footprint\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-19\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-19\",\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"Wideum\"},\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"Wideum\"},\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wideum.com\/news\/cutting-co2-in-2026-remote-assistance-smart-glasses\"},\"about\":[\"CO2 reduction\",\"remote assistance\",\"smart glasses\",\"sustainability\"]},{\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How much CO2 can remote assistance software save in 2026?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The exact figure depends on how many on-site visits a company currently makes and how many it replaces with video sessions; Wideum's CO2 calculator estimates this per company, while Wideum states that remote assistance adopters can cut travel by up to 40%.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How much CO2 can remote assistance software save overall?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"At category level, TeamViewer's 2023 CO2 study found that its users and customers avoided between 15.6 and 44.8 million tons of CO2 globally in a single year through remote software use, with a realistic-scenario estimate of about 41 million tons.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What counts as business travel emissions under the GHG Protocol?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Business travel emissions cover flights, trains, buses and cars used by employees in vehicles not owned by the company, calculated via fuel-based, distance-based or spend-based methods.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Do I need smart glasses to reduce travel-related CO2, or can I use a phone?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No single device is required: Remote Eye and Process Eye run on smart glasses from Vuzix, RealWear and Moziware, as well as on standard phones and tablets, and all of them avoid the same travel-related CO2 once a visit is replaced by a remote session.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How does Wideum's CO2 calculator work?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The calculator takes a company's current number of service trips and estimates the CO2 that could be avoided by replacing a portion of them with remote assistance sessions.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is the CO2 impact of remote assistance proven, or just a marketing claim?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"For the remote-access software category as a whole, TeamViewer's figures come from a study whose methodology was independently reviewed by TUV SUD; Wideum's own 40% travel-reduction figure is a claim about its own product and should be verified against each company's own baseline using a calculator.\"}}]}]}<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Industrial companies can lower their CO2 footprint by replacing on-site service trips with live video remote assistance, delivered through a phone, a tablet or hands-free smart glasses. A single service trip by air can emit well over 100 kg of CO2 for one seat. A video session that replaces it emits only a small fraction [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":63827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wideum.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}