Going Green With Google: How the Tech Giant is Helping Businesses Embrace Sustainability

In recent years, the world has seen an urgent need for eco-friendly operations. If we look at 2020 alone, it had 2 massive wildfires in different parts of the world that consumed more than 4 million acres of land. 2020 also proved to be the warmest year, so warm that the highest temperature on Antarctica was 18 degree celsius. This has collectively reminded us how essential it has become to work towards a greener environment. 

The purpose of a business today is not just to maximize its profits but to also contribute responsibly to the environment. Businesses have now come to a realization that the technology that helps them on a daily basis can help them achieve this goal of sustainability. Many institutions are becoming more and more environmentally aware and are practicing multiple ways to become more sustainable. 

Sustainability has become a widely recognized and applauded practice. While a decade ago, the usual road towards sustainability would have included using both sides of the paper or replacing lights with LED bulbs and mostly recycling, this is the decade of responsible tech giants. And one of them, Google, has taken this initiative much further. 

Google’s Sustainability Model

Google has been focusing on being carbon neutral since 2007 and has been working towards it ever since. Google aims to become completely carbon-free by the year 2030. It targets this change on a systematic level by working with governments and policymakers to achieve carbon-free energy. Numerous efforts have been put on data centers so they can be made more efficient by improving energy use and resources. Today, they can operate two times more efficiently than an average enterprise. 

Google has seen an increase in carbon-free energy in many sites. They are committed to purchasing clean energy from more than 50 wind and solar projects globally, worth $4 million, by the year 2034. 

Google has also made admirable progress in many other ways apart from renewable energy. They have shifted data center backup to batteries and have also come up with a facility for cloud customers where they can select the lowest carbon option.

Google’s Inhouse Practices

Google is the cleanest cloud in the industry. It is currently working with a group of cloud customers and focuses on reducing the carbon impact of its operations. Google aims to make the digital transformation a sustainable one. When focusing mainly on Google in-house initiatives, it focuses largely on the impact of the workplace and the buildings that they are located in. More than 15 million square feet of Google offices have achieved leadership in energy and environmental design certification. (LEED)

Sustainable Transportation 

Google also focuses its efforts on clean transport and promotes the use of bicycles and electric vehicles. It provides a shuttle in California’s Bay Area, which is Google’s biggest headquarters. This shuttle is equivalent to taking 8760 cars off the road every working day, which in turn has reduced more than 40,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. 

Google Makes Businesses Green

Google’s green efforts are not restricted to itself. The tech giant has been consistently helping businesses make sustainable choices, helping them meet their goals while ensuring that they give back to the planet abundantly.

Google’s Hand in a Carbon-Free Future

In this past year, Google has worked for 50 customers to evaluate their IT estates for their carbon footprint. It has helped bring down carbon emissions in huge data lakes from carbon emission of kilotons to a few kilograms. Google is working continuously to completely decarbonize the electricity supply and have a carbon-free future. 

Google’s Technological Road Towards Sustainability 

Google Cloud has partnered with nonprofit and research organizations, businesses, and governments to build technology for the purpose of change. Technology is proving to be very valuable for the purposes of restoration of projects and sustainability. Data analytics tools can provide real-time energy consumption data which can provide a helping hand to managers in identifying and making decisions that can reduce C0₂ footprint. The hyper-efficient infrastructure helps to reduce the energy they use. 

Introduction of Various Google Platforms

The company is working on a platform, where data will be available to more than 3,000 cities for the purpose of reducing their carbon emissions. The platform uses complete data sources and modeling capabilities, similar to the ones on Google Maps which can provide solutions regarding transportation emissions and the opportunity to reduce them. Google also found more products that help people make sustainable choices by 2022. Google Maps is said to soon default to routes with the lowest carbon footprint. 

Back in 2016, Google threw light on the capabilities of machine learning to optimize the cooling systems in the global data centers of Google. These ML systems are now responsible for 40% of the energy savings in their cooling systems. 

Today the companies whose IT infrastructure comes from Google Cloud, or are using Gmail as their email cloud provider are adding to the sustainability impact. Google endorses a list of best practices to help businesses cultivate sustainability in their own organizations. 

If you think what Google does on the sustainability front is impressive and want to be one of those businesses which are going green with Google, Econz Cloud can support you. As an exclusive Google Premier Partner, we are at a unique advantage to help you through the transformation. Reach out to us, and we’ll start your sustainability journey.