Reducing our Carbon Footprint
Our business powers the platforms that drive the Internet. With hundreds of millions of Google users, it takes extensive computer infrastructure to keep our tools and services running. And that takes a lot of electricity. Generating that electricity requires energy, and as our business grows, we want to make sure we minimize our impact on the Earth's climate. So we’re taking every step we can to produce electricity using renewable energy resources that don't add to the production of greenhouse gas emissions.
As part of that responsibility, Google has committed to being carbon neutral. To honor our pledge, we’re taking a three-step approach. We are first looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint by increasing the energy efficiency of our own operations. We are then thinking about the sources of our electricity. To that end, we decided to focus on working towards a goal of making electricity from renewable sources cheaper than from coal, our RE<C initiative. Finally, we're investing in projects to offset greenhouse gas emissions we cannot directly or indirectly eliminate.
Improving Efficiency
Efficiency and innovation are central Google values. From our very first servers to our latest-generation data centers, extracting maximum performance per watt of consumed power has allowed the scale and scope of our services to grow exponentially. It’s good for the environment and good for business, too.
Today we are operating what we believe to be the world's most efficient data centers.
We have taken actions to directly reduce the environmental impact associated with other aspects of our operations as well. As a first step, we’re gradually retrofitting our global offices with high-efficiency lighting, optimizing our use of natural light, and using better building control systems. We’re planning to expand our use of power management software for desktop computers, and incorporate motion sensors and other lighting controls that further reduce our power usage. Finally, Google is in the process of performing extensive energy audits to better understand precisely how much electricity we consume – and in what ways – so that we can optimize our systems to demand as little energy as possible.
In addition to “greening” our own business, we’re also cooperating with members of the tech community to improve efficiency on a broader scale. In 2007, we teamed with Intel and other industry partners to form the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which advocates the design and adoption of more efficient computing infrastructure. By 2010, we seek to reduce global CO2 emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons per year, equivalent to the annual output of 11 million cars or 10–20 coal-fired power plants. Declare your support today by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. With your help, this effort will lead to a 50% reduction in power consumption by computers by 2010, and committed participants could collectively save $5.5 billion in energy costs.
Utilizing Renewable Power
Google believes that renewable energy is a critical component of a clean energy future; as a result, Google.org launched RE<C, an initiative aimed at creating utility-scale renewable electricity that is cheaper than coal. We have a goal of producing one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity – enough to power a city the size of San Francisco – in years, not decades.
We’re also eager to use more on-site renewable power in our facilities. In Mountain View, CA, for example, we currently have a 1.6 megawatt (MW) solar power system that generates 30% of the peak power necessary to fuel the buildings on which they are located.
Additionally, when buying power for our data centers, Google will use a “shadow price” for carbon. This voluntary pricing of carbon will enable us to calculate a more accurate cost of power as one of the key criteria in site selection for our data centers. The cost of carbon is not yet recognized by the U.S. market, but may soon become so through legislation.
Pricing carbon is an important tool to reducing the financial risk that our energy investments face. Moreover, when evaluating power options, using a shadow price for carbon puts renewable energy on a more level playing field.
Investing in Carbon Offset Projects
At this time, our work to improve efficiency and generate renewable energy doesn’t cover Google’s entire carbon footprint. That’s why we also fund projects around the world that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We look for projects that provide a clear plan for monitoring and verification of results by third parties so we can be certain that the reductions are real and permanent, and that the projects we buy credits from go beyond what would have happened anyway. Through this requirement, we are able to ensure that our investment makes a real difference in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We look for project activity that would not be viable without carbon financing. An example of a project that we have selected is the installation of improved animal waste management systems in small livestock operations in Mexico and Brazil. Normally these operations store waste runoff in open lagoons, which emit methane and nitrous oxide, both potent greenhouse gases. Our funding helps make it possible for anaerobic digesters to be installed, which capture and flare the biogas produced while simultaneously improving local air quality and reducing land and water contamination.
On their own, carbon offsets are not capable of creating the kinds of fundamental changes to global energy infrastructure that will be necessary to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions over the long-term. But the projects to which we contribute do offer real and measurable emissions reductions that allow Google to take full responsibility for our footprint today.
