Google CEO, Sundar Pichai recently announced that the company had become one the first to eliminate their entire carbon legacy. The company had earlier become carbon neutral in 2007. This means that Google’s lifetime net carbon footprint is now zero, making it the first major company to get this done, to date. In addition to this, they also became the first major company to make a commitment to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy in all our data centres and campuses worldwide by 2030. Google won’t be alone for long: Earlier this year, Microsoft, which became carbon neutral in 2013, set a goal to erase its 45-year carbon legacy by 2050.

“As of today, Google is the 1st major company to eliminate our entire carbon legacy, before we became carbon neutral in 2007. We’re also proud that by 2030, we aim to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy in our data centers and campuses worldwide,” Pichai tweeted. In a blog post written by Pichai, he added that going forward; Google is also investing in technologies that will help its partners across the world “make sustainable choices”.

Google has led the charge when it comes to setting and meeting bold sustainability targets. In 2017, Google began using 100% renewable energy across its global operations. Last year, the company made the largest corporate purchase of renewable energy in history. And last month, it issued $5.75 billion in sustainability bonds, which differ from “green bonds” because their proceeds support investment in both environmental and social initiatives, the largest offering of any company to date.

Google further noted that it is working on ways to apply AI to optimise electricity demand and forecasting. As an example of investing in technologies Google stated, “We are investing in manufacturing regions to enable 5 GW of new carbon-free energy, helping 500 cities reduce their carbon emissions and finding new ways to empower 1 billion people through our products,” As per Google, these efforts will help create 20,000 jobs in clean energy and associated industries by 2025.

Carbon Footprint

To quote the World Health Organization, your “carbon footprint” is a measure of the impact your activities have on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) produced through the burning of fossil fuels and is expressed as a weight of CO2 emissions produced in tonnes. This can be at an individual level as well as for an organisation, company or group.