Google Sustainability News, Milestones, Cloud Partnerships and Net Zero Timeline

Here are additional Google sustainability strategy updates, and the associated partner implications.

November 2023: Sustainability Strategy and Partnerships

Multiple Updates...

• Cloud Services: The company continues to press forward with its T-EACs -- which enables clean energy generation and trading to be tracked on an hourly basis.
• Data Centers: An advanced geothermal project has begun pumping carbon-free electricity onto the Nevada grid to power Google data centers there, SeekingAlpha reported.
• AI for Climate Action: How can artificial intelligence (AI) potentially assist businesses, researchers and government agencies with climate action? Google and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) offered some context in a white paper titled "Accelerating Climate Action with AI."

• Talent: Google veteran Mike Werner will now lead the technology company's Sustainability Programs and Innovation Group.

• Cloud Partnership - Consulting: Sustainability consultancy ERM has joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program as a service partner. Among the potential use cases: Google Earth Engine will allow ERM to "scale the use of earth observation data to address organizations’ most pressing sustainability imperatives including climate risk identification and management, and biodiversity and nature strategy," the companies said. Among the key names to know: Kushal Mashru, head of strategic partnerships at ERM.

October 2023: Google Sustainability Strategy, Milestones, Partnerships and Investments

Software Tools: The search giant announced multiple product milestones, including:

• How Google uses AI to combat floods, wildfires and extreme heat.
• How Project Green Light leverages AI to reduce urban traffic emissions.
• New Fuel-Efficient Routing technology.
• How Tapestry, an early Alphabet project, developed AI-powered tools for grid mapping and planning to help governments and utilities efficiently model scenarios, like taking a coal-based plant offline or how an extreme weather event could impact clean energy sources. 
• How a new feature in Google Earth makes it easier for planners to determine the best building designs and solar options for urban areas. 
• CEO Sundar Pichai provided more context here.
• Related: See Google's sustainability strategy and net-zero timeline here.

September 2023: Google Sustainability Strategy, Milestones, Partnerships and Investments

Multiple updates...

Malaysia: Google is keen to explore partnerships with Malaysia’s local governments and municipalities to drive the country’s 2050 net zero ambition, according to Apac Richard Navarro, Google's Real Estate Team sustainability lead, the Sun Daily reported.

Tablets - Right to Repair: Google has partnered withi iFixIt on the Google Pixel Tablet. The effort promotes user-friendly repairs and longevity, aligning with the right to repair movement, Android Police reported.

Chromebooks - E-Waste Reduction: Google plans to provide Chromebook software updates for up to a decade. The new policy, which starts in 2024, ensures that no existing Chromebook will expire within the next two years, The Wall Street Journal reported. Newer models have eight years of support, while older Chromebooks have five, the report said. Starting in 2024, Google will support a given laptop “platform”—a certain combination of hardware components—for 10 years after the first device in the platform hits store shelves, The Journal noted.

Renewable Energy in Ireland: The company signed an agreement with Power Capital Renewable Energy for 58 megawatts (MW) of new-to-the grid capacity from the Tullabeg Solar Farm. Once operational, this PPA (power purchase agreement) will help Google's offices and data centre in Ireland to reach 60% carbon-free energy in 2025 when measured on an hourly basis, according to Ainhoa Anda, data center energy senior lead at the search giant.

AI and Sustainability: Amid concerns that AI applications may consume substantial energy, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian sees the situation differently. In an interview with Diginomica, Kurian said: "One of the reasons that we talk about performance improvement and optimization is that you need to spend a lot less compute time, and therefore a lot less energy watts, in order to train a model. When we say we can run a model training two times faster and better than other companies in the industry, it means you need half the amount of energy to train our model."

More: Continue to the next page for additional Google sustainability strategy updates, and associated partner engagements.