The minutes softly dragged

INDIAN BOARDROOMS have gone paperless. And it appears, the new power gadget is the Apple iPad.
Agenda papers for a board meeting can run into 100 pages for a single director and the large number of copies that are printed are shredded at the end of the meeting for confidentiality. The switch to iPads has certainly helped save time, effort, money, printing costs, baggage, and a large number of trees.

Bharti Airtel has used the gadget to get rid of the bulky and expensive folders, often made of chamois leather, which included copies of the board of director’s reports as well as presentations.

In January, it presented iPads to all 16 directors, the chief financial officer, and the company secretary. iPads were the only items allowed on the table, and contained all the agenda papers and presentations required for the meeting.

While Bharti calls it “going green with flair”, the iPad, in fact, allowed all the directors to focus on the content and follow the discussions and presentations with ease, making the required notes along the way.

“The papers are shredded anyway, and it takes an enormous time and effort to collate and print them,” says Vijaya Sampath, group general counsel and company secretary, Bharti Enterprises. “With the iPad, we could read the reports, and, if required, access e-mail and even stock prices.”

In January, Tata Technologies, a Tata Group company, tried iPads for one of their board meetings. It had such a strong impact that Tata Technologies’ managing director Patrick McGoldrick, who also sits on the board of Tata Elxsi, later requested the Tata Elxsi company secretary for papers in digital form.

Board papers in digital form make for faster delivery. Directors can digitally annotate, ask questions, or comment before the board meeting, which allows management to focus on key areas, making the meetings more effective, says a Tata Technologies spokesperson. “The primary benefits are timeliness and efficiency, beyond the issue of climate change,” he adds.

Apple claims that under ideal conditions, the total lifecycle carbon footprint of an iPad is 130 kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) minus the energy used to charge the device. That’s roughly equal to the carbon emissions per passenger on a 1,000 kilometre flight. Each tonne of paper produced releases 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads last quarter, taking total sales to about 20 million since the tablet debuted in April 2010.