Google's net zero efforts -- led by Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt (pictured, top of page) -- don't end there. The company, driven by CEO Sundar Pichai, also develops cloud-based sustainability software tools for partners and customers to leverage. And the Google Startups for Sustainable Development program supports a global ecosystem of impact-focused startups. The program builds community and supports startups with advisors, funding, and platform technology.
The timeline below, updated regularly, further explains Google's sustainability strategy, key milestones, customer engagements, partner integrations and more. Check back regularly for updates.
November 2025
Carbon Credits: Google has struck its biggest carbon removal deal, agreeing to finance restoration of the Amazon rainforest with Brazilian startup Mombak. (Source: Reuters)
Data Centers in Space?: Google announced Project Suncatcher, which equips solar-powered satellites with TPUs and optical links to one day scale machine learning compute in space.
October 2025
Nuclear Power Partnership: NextEra Energy plans to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa's only nuclear facility, by Q1 2029. Google has agreed to purchase power from the plant.
Partnership - Data Centers and Carbon Capture Technology: Google has partnered with Broadwing Energy on a carbon capture and storage deal in Illinois, SeekingAlpha reported. The agreement involves a gas-fired power plant that will power AI data centers, the report said.
Data Centers and Nuclear Power: Google wants to develop six data centers in Iowa, and the effort could involve restarting Duane Arnold Energy Center -- a decommissioned nuclear reactor.
Funding - Solar Management Software:OpenSolar, a free software platform serving more than 25,000 solar installer businesses, has raised $20 million in funding. Key Backers include Titanium Ventures, Google and 2150 Sustainability Fund. Instead of charging licensing fees to solar installers, OpenSolar generates revenue through partnerships with hardware and finance providers. The company is based in Sydney, Australia.
Data Center Investments: Google will invest $4 billion in Arkansas through 2027 for the construction of a new data center, powered by Entergy. The power mix will include fossil fuels and solar energy.
September 2025
Financing - Crypto Data Centers: TeraWulf is expected to raise approximately $3 billion to support the build-out of its data centers via a structure supported by Google Inc., Bloomberg reported. The financing will emphasize sustainable bitcoin mining, OneSafe said.
Carbon Credits: The company partnered with Vaulted Deep in a bid to permanently remove CO2 and eliminate methane emissions from waste, the search giant said in a blog.
Managed Energy Services: Google has selected Shell to manage its UK renewable energy supply, with the oil giant’s traders balancing power flows through access to battery storage systems, Bloomberg reported.
Downplaying Net Zero?: Google in June 2025 quietly removed its net zero goals from its website, though the company remains committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030, a spokesperson told Canada's National Observer.
August 2025
Ben Gomes, chief technologist, learning and sustainability, Google
Cloud Services- AI Energy Consumption: A Google technical report describes AI's energy consumption, and Google's strategy to improve AI model efficiency, according to a blog from Ben Gomes, chief technologist, learning and sustainability. However, the AI energy consumption sustainability study faces some pushback because it doesn't include indirect water usage -- that is, the water consumed at power plants that supply electricity to data centers, TechStory reported.
Partnership - Cloud Services and Nuclear Power: Google, partnering with Kairos Power, has selected Tennessee as the site of an advanced nuclear power plant that is expected to supply electricity to the Big Tech company's data centers in the U.S. southeast starting in 2030, Reuters reported.
Data Centers and U.S. Renewable Energy Policies: The Data Center Coalition, which represents data center owners such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft, called on U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to uphold existing rules for wind and solar energy subsidies, saying they have enabled the industry to grow quickly and stay ahead of competition from China, Reuters reported.
AI Data Centers and Energy Consumption: Google has agreed to reduce its AI data center power consumption during times of surging demand on the grid, the cloud services and search giant said in a blog post. The move involves energy partners such as Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
July 2025
Hydropower Partnership: Google will source up to 3,000 megawatts (MW) of carbon-free hydroelectric capacity from Brookfield Asset Management, the companies said. The first steps, representing more than $3 billion in power, involve hydroelectric facilities in Pennsylvania, the companies said.
Investment - Battery and Energy Storage: Google is making a strategic investment in Energy Dome, and plans to use Energy Dome’s CO2 Battery technology to "enable carbon-free energy for the grids that power Google’s operations."
June 2025
Fusion Power Partnership: Google plans to purchase fusion power from Commonwealth Fusion Systems by the early 2030s, the companies said.
Annual Sustainability Report: Google's 2025 Environmental Report revealed a 12% reduction in data center emissions -- despite a 27% rise in data center energy consumption.
Cloud Services: At the Google Cloud Next 2025 conference, the company unveiled new sustainability-focused services: AI-powered data management, a “LEO ESG” platform for banks, geospatial analytics via Earth Engine in BigQuery, and the Cloud Carbon Footprint tool to measure and reduce emissions
Partnerships: Google is partnering with Recoolit and Cool Effect in an effort to eliminate more than 25,000 tons of superpollutants by 2030, the search giant said.
Solar Energy: Google, through a partnership with energyRe, plans to invest in and purchase Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from solar and storage projects in South Carolina. The ongoing relationship will enable over 1 GWac of new clean capacity to the grid, the companies said.
April 2025 Updates
Data Center Spending: Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reaffirmed the company pledge to invest about $75 billion to build out data center infrastructure, SeekingAlpha reported. Rival Microsoft has allegedly cancelled or scaled back some data center projects in recent months, triggering concern that the AI data center boom may have peaked.
Water Management: The company over the past year has launched at least four water management partnerships "within agricultural areas in watersheds that supply our data centers and offices," the company said.
Early Wildfire Detection: Google Research and Moun Space are touting Earth Fire Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes "AI to prevent the devastating impact of wildfires." The effort includes FireSat -- a satellite that seeks to detect smaller wildfires before they have a chance to spread.
Digital Ads: Google has announced Carbon Footprint for Google Ads, which allows marketers to track the emissions generated from accounts using Google advertising products.
Software - IT Carbon Accounting: The Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA) has certified the Dynatrace Cost & Carbon Optimization app. The certification essentially confirms that Dynatrace's software "is a reliable estimation system for calculating the operational GHG emissions of IT infrastructure in cloud and on-premises environments," the SDIA said. The app allows customers to calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and on-premises host instances.
Expanding Nuclear Capacity: Major companies -- including Amazon, Google and Meta -- signed a pledge to at least triple nuclear capacity by 2050, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Partnership - AI and Home Energy Management: Carrier Global and Google Cloud are partnering to "create intelligent, connected solutions for residential HVAC energy customers," the two companies said. The result: Carrier and Google Cloud are striving to deliver a smarter, more efficient and AI-powered energy ecosystem that benefits homeowners and supports the next generation of technology infrastructure, the firms added.
Cloud Partner:Othersphere has achieved the Google Cloud Ready - Sustainability designation in the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program. Othersphere Explorer, which runs on Google Cloud, is an enterprise software tool that "accelerates deployment of sustainable industrial infrastructure," the company said.
AI and Weather Forecasting: Google DeepMind and Google Research have released WeatherNext -- a family of AI models that could help energy companies, retailers, financial services firms, manufacturers and others better prepare for extreme weather events.
More: Continue to the next page for additional Google sustainability strategy updates, and associated partner engagements.
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