Google just announced its mega plan to fight against the rising climate change and its harmful consequences. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, addressed climate change and Google's aim to go carbon free in a recent blogpost. Pichai called for immediate action against climate change to prevent the harsh consequences it can potentially bring, and added that Google too has a part to play in the matter. He further highlighted the ways that the company plans to help build a carbon-free future for everyone.
Pichai stated that sustainability has been Google's core value ever since the company was founded, and that Google was the first major company to go carbon free in 2007. ''We were the first major company to match our energy use with 100 percent renewable energy in 2017. We operate the cleanest global cloud in the industry, and we’re the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy.'', he continued.
Among the ways it plans to go carbon-free, first and foremost, Google has announced entirely eliminating its carbon legacy as of today, by purchasing high-quality carbon offsets. According to Pirchai, Google's lifetime net carbon footprint is now zero.
Secondly, Google is committing to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy across all of its data centers and campuses around the world. While Google claims that the initiative is a difficult one due to technical and practical complexities, it is dedicated to get it done by the year 2030. ''This will mean every email you send through Gmail, every question you ask Google Search, every YouTube video you watch, and every route you take using Google Maps, is supplied by clean energy every hour of every day.'', Pichai explained. Google plans to invest in methods that make it possible to source reliable carbon-free energy in all locations. With things like pairing wind and solar power together and increasing the use of battery storage, Google aims to achieve this goal. Moreover, this initiative, according to Google, will bring 12,000 jobs by 2025.
Third most important of all, Google is investing in technologies to make sustainable choices, such as enabling 5 GW of new carbon-free energy, helping about 500 cities reduce their carbon emissions, and finding new ways to empower 1 billion people through its products that provide the least carbon-intensive options. Google specifically aims to enable 5 GW of new carbon-free energy across its key manufacturing regions by 2030.
With Google announcing a comprehensive framework of the goals it promises to achieve in the next few years to ensure a more sustainable environment and fighting against climate change, the world would expects a lot from the tech giant, while looking forward to an optimistic, carbon-free future.
