Google Sustainability Strategy: Mike Werner's New Role and Responsibilities

Google veteran Mike Werner will now lead the technology company's Sustainability Programs and Innovation Group, Werner disclosed in a LinkedIn update.

Werner's responsibilities include leading company-wide sustainability efforts for materials, circular economy, water, and nature & biodiversity programs from the Global Sustainability Team.

Werner previously was Google's head of circular economy (2019 through November 2023). Earlier, he was manager for product sustainability and environmental compliance across devices and services. That post spanned all of Google's consumer hardware devices and accessories.

Describing his new position, Werner wrote on LinkedIn: "I am thrilled to share that I will now lead Google's Sustainability Programs & Innovation group focused on our company wide sustainability efforts for materials, circular economy, water, and nature & biodiversity continuing under the incredible leadership of Kate Brandt and her Global Sustainability (Dream) Team! ♻💧🌳"

Kate Brandt is Google's chief sustainability officer. Google, owned by Alphabet, is striving to achieve net zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030. At the same time, Google Cloud's goal is to run on carbon-free energy, 24/7, across all data centers by 2030. The overall effort includes cloud-centric sustainability partnerships.

So what's next? Keep an eye on the Google Cloud Next 2024 conference, which is scheduled for April 9-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company typically announces sustainability partnerships and associated software tools at the cloud event.

Related: Track Google's sustainability strategy and ongoing updates here.