Google Sustainability Actions

Operating on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030

We’re proud that we were the first major company to reach carbon neutrality and have become one of the world’s largest corporate buyers of renewable energy. But we know we must push further to confront the magnitude of today’s climate challenge. Now, we aim to be the first major company to achieve 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. To get there, we’re pursuing new carbon-free energy generation and storage technologies. We’ll continue our work with governments, utilities, and policymakers to deploy those technologies and drive system-level change. And as we learn more about the best ways to move towards our goal, we hope to demonstrate that a fully decarbonized future is achievable for everyone.

Evidence Evidence

Eliminate all our legacy carbon emissions since 1998

In 2007, we were the first major company to commit to carbon neutrality, and since 2017 we’ve matched 100% of our electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. So what about those years between 1998 and 2006? Good question. As of today, we’ve procured enough high-quality carbon offsets to neutralize all of our emissions since our founding.

Evidence Evidence

Deploy $5.75B in sustainability bonds

Sustainability bonds are increasingly-important tools that drive investment in environmental and social initiatives worldwide. This August, we issued $5.75 billion in sustainability bonds. It’s the largest corporate issuance of its kind, ever. These investments will ramp up support for a wide variety of issues vital to a sustainable future - clean energy, green buildings, clean transportation, circular design, affordable housing, racial equity, COVID-19 response, and support for small businesses, just to name a few.

Evidence Evidence

Help over 500 cities to reduce 1 gigaton of carbon emissions annually by 2030

Half of Earth’s population lives in cities. Seventy percent of emissions originate in cities. Environmental Insights Explorer already helps a hundred cities understand their emissions and solar potential more clearly. We’re making that data available to 3,000 cities, helping them to measure, plan, and track progress towards their climate action plans. This creates a quicker pathway to better air quality and new green jobs, with a goal of emissions reductions equivalent to taking 200 million cars off the road for a year.

Evidence Evidence

Remove more carbon from the atmosphere with reforestation and better tree data

Efficiency and clean energy are vital, but we also need to remove carbon that’s already in the air. Nature provides a great solution - trees - but knowing where, when, and what to plant is critical to ensure planted trees thrive and have the desired effect of restoring lands and communities. We’re starting with our own science-based reforestation efforts in California, Texas, Spain, and Australia. We’re also partnering with Crowther Lab to develop a global data platform to increase the impact of restoration projects around the world, enabling others to come on this journey.

Evidence Evidence

Launch €10M Climate Impact Challenge to accelerate green recovery

The Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate commits €10M to fund bold ideas that aim to use technology to accelerate Europe’s progress toward a greener, more resilient future. Selected organizations may receive up to €2M in funding and possible customized post-grant support from the Google for Startups Accelerator to help bring their ideas to life.

Evidence Evidence

Breakthrough AI research to dramatically increase building efficiency

In 2016, Google and DeepMind started using machine learning to control the cooling systems in our global data centers. Those algorithms now work safely and autonomously to bring a 30% energy savings to our cooling systems, in our most energy-intense buildings. Pretty cool, but just a start. Now, we’ve developed the Industrial Adaptive Controls platform to deliver AI-enabled energy savings on a global scale. We will make these solutions available to the largest industrial enterprises and Building Management software providers. These software providers collectively make up nearly 60% of the global large commercial building footprint. Now that’s efficiency at planetary scale.

Evidence Evidence

Pushing Change Forward

When it comes to sustainability, we get more done when we move together. That’s why we partner with nonprofits, research organizations, governments, and businesses to build custom technology and tools to accelerate meaningful change.

Evidence Evidence

Making Impact Personal

We want to make it easy to be more sustainable. That’s why we build products and technology to help people to better understand their impact and actions.

Evidence Evidence

Efficient data centers help us better serve our users, in a more sustainable way

For more than a decade, we’ve worked to make Google data centers some of the most efficient in the world by designing, building, and operating each one to maximize efficient use of energy, water, and materials, improving their environmental performance even as demand for our products has risen.

Evidence Evidence

Twice as Efficient

On average, a Google data center is twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center

Evidence Evidence

Creating sustainable workplaces is good for people and the environment

We focus on the user when we’re designing products, and we focus on our employees when we’re creating the healthiest possible workplaces.

Evidence Evidence

Food Waste

Tracking data and making adjustments in our cafés has helped us prevent over 3 million kilograms (6.6 million pounds) of food waste since 2014.

Evidence Evidence

Building products that will leave people, the planet, and our communities better than we found them.

Integrating sustainability into our products, operations and communities is an ongoing endeavor that involves designing in sustainability from the start and embedding it into the entire product development process, all while creating the products our customers want.

Evidence Evidence

Empowering users with technology means we can do more, together

We meet the challenges posed by climate change by working to empower everyone—businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations, communities, and individuals—to use Google technology to create a more sustainable world

Evidence Evidence

A responsible supply chain isn't just the right thing to do for people and the planet — it's also good for business.

We're committed to minimizing our environmental impact and improving the lives of all people who make our products. We expect the highest ethical standards throughout our supply chain and promote meaningful social change at supplier sites and nearby communities

Evidence Evidence

Carbon-Free Cloud

Every single product in our Cloud is carbon neutral, from Google Search at home to a large business running on Google Cloud.

Evidence Evidence

Enhancing our Products

We are adding features to our core products that will help 1 billion people reduce their environmental footprint.

Evidence Evidence