Google Promises To Completely Run Its Business Operations On Carbon-Free Energy By 2030

Google plans to completely run its business operations on carbon-free energy by 2030, CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday.

“We’ll start by working towards 24/7 carbon-free energy at all of our data centers and campuses around the world. Our data centers power the products and services you’ve come to rely on every day,” Pichai wrote. “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.”

Google is the latest big tech company to cut down carbon emissions. In September 2019, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced his company would vow to become carbon neutral by 2040.

“We’re done being in the middle of the herd on this issue—we’ve decided to use our size and scale to make a difference,” Bezos said about going carbon neutral. “If a company with as much physical infrastructure as Amazon—which delivers more than 10 billion items a year—can meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early, then any company can.”

In July, Apple announced it would attempt to make its supply chain and products completely carbon neutral by 2030.

“Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in July.

“The innovations powering our environmental journey are not only good for the planet — they’ve helped us make our products more energy efficient and bring new sources of clean energy online around the world. Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth. With our commitment to carbon neutrality, we hope to be a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change.”

Big tech companies have been frequently criticized for their environmental impact in recent years.

Environmental action group Greenpeace has attacked big tech firms such as Amazon and Google for being too close to the oil industry.