Google (Alphabet)
CEF Lead Executives
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KATE BRANDTList Item 1
CEF LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
Google Sustainability Officer
Kate leads sustainability across Google’s worldwide operations, products and supply chains. Previously Kate served as the Nation's first Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, responsible for promoting sustainability across Federal Government operations. Prior to the White House, Kate held several senior roles in the U.S. Federal Government including Senior Advisor at the Department of Energy, Director for Energy and Environment in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, and Energy Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy. Kate is the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest award the U.S. Navy can give to a civilian, for her work helping the Navy go green. Kate serves on the boards of EVgo, BSR, The Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, and CEF. Kate received a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She graduated with honors from Brown University.
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MICHAEL TERRELL
Sr. Director for Climate
Michael leads the Google’s efforts to decarbonize its global operations and value chain. Michael has driven the company’s energy and climate leadership for over a decade; in his prior role as Global Director of Energy, he spearheaded Google’s commitment to operate on 24/7 carbon free energy by 2030. Michael also serves as Board Chair of the Clean Energy Buyers Alliance (CEBA), which he co-founded in 2018. Today, CEBA’s over 400 members are working together to achieve a 90% carbon-free US electricity system by 2030, and to build a global movement of energy customers driving the clean energy transition. Prior to joining Google, Michael served in the US government, including at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Environment, the University of Michigan Law School and the University of the South. Michael appears frequently in global media outlets and serves as a guest lecturer at Stanford University. Follow him on Twitter @michael_terrell.
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MIKE WERNER
Head of Sustainability Programs & Innovation
Mike leads company wide sustainability efforts for materials, circular economy, water, and nature and biodiversity programs from the Global Sustainability Team. Previously at Google, Mike was lead for circular economy where he is responsible for leading the organization to eliminate waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and drive the development and use of safer chemistry and healthy materials across their operations, products, and supply chains and enable others to do the same. He also led the product sustainability and environmental compliance team in their consumer hardware division.
Prior to Google, Mike led safer chemistry and biocompatibility initiatives at Apple and product sustainability for Haworth Inc, a global contract office furniture manufacturer. Mike has worked in the green building and product design space for 15 years including with renowned green architect Bill McDonough. Mike holds a BS in Chemistry from Villanova University. He’s on the board of directors for the Healthy Building Network and serves on advisory boards for the Green Science Policy Institute, ChemForward, and Materiom.org. Mike previously served as a sustainability advisor to the Department of Homeland Security and National Institute of Building Sciences.
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ANTONIA GAWEL
Director, Sustainability Partnerships
Prior to her new role, Antonia was Head of Climate Change at the World Economic Forum and served as Deputy Head of the Centre for Nature and Climate. In this role she oversaw the Forum's wider climate strategy and key flagship initiatives and communities. Over her eight years with the Forum, she led the launch of major public-private collaborations across the climate and circular economy agendas including the First Movers Coalition, the Global Plastics Action Partnership, and the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy. Prior to joining the Forum, she worked at the International Energy Agency (IEA), responsible for IEA’s work on monitoring and evaluating clean energy progress as input to the Clean Energy Ministerial and G-20 processes. Before this, she was Deputy Director of Energy and Climate at the WBCSD and also worked in Bhutan as an adviser across the ASEAN region on environment and clean energy, among other roles. She holds a Master’s in Environmental Planning, Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics and a degree in Economics from the University of Toronto.
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JESSICA REINHARDT
Partnerships & Engagement, Global Sustainability
Jessica is a member of Google's Global Sustainability Team, where she leads partnerships and engagement across the company's sustainability portfolio. Jessica has over 15 years of experience in the energy sector, having previously led global advocacy for Google’s 24/7 carbon-free energy goal. Prior to joining Google, she served as Senior Director of Policy at Sunrun, where she led policy and market development for distributed solar, storage, and other applications across the United States. She also held roles at Tesla, SolarCity, Consolidated Edison, and began her career as energy counsel in the New York State Legislature. Jessica resides in the Bay Area.
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DANI TON
Director, Cloud Sustainability
Dani leads the Google Cloud Environmental and Social Responsibility team. With a decade at Google, she initially joined Nest, where she established the Contract Manufacturing organization for Nest and later broadened her role to develop the Contract Manufacturing and Capital Equipment Expenditure organization for the Devices and Services Product Area (Consumer Hardware). Currently, Dani leads the Net Zero and Supplier Responsibility and Compliance efforts for Google Cloud. Her extensive experience in supply chain, manufacturing, and commercial sectors enables her to signicantly improve the safety of working conditions and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the production of Google products. Dani holds a Bachelor of Economics from Columbia University and an MBA from Duke University, the Fuqua School of Business. She is also an Associate Board Member at Minds Maer Bay Area (MMBay).
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SARAH PENNDORF
Standards and Advocacy Senior Lead
Sarah has been working on various sides of climate, energy, and corporate sustainability for more than 15 years. She joined Google in 2021 to build and lead the company’s standards program. In this capacity, Sarah is responsible for the company’s thought leadership and advocacy of next gen climate standards. Prior to Google, Sarah led the energy and climate practice at a consulting firm, completed research at Harvard and the UNDP, and launched a failed startup. Her degrees are in environmental science, environmental studies, and international studies. Sarah’s most important job of all is being Mom to her
two young children.
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DAVID BOURNE
Lead Sustainability Strategist
David is a lead strategist and a founding member of the Devices and Services sustainability team at Google. Since joining Google in 2014, David has managed product quality efforts for Nest products and currently develops the strategy and roadmap of product innovation in sustainability for Google’s consumer electronics portfolio. His focus on circular economy principles has helped Google achieve industry-leading outcomes in the use of recycled materials and more deeply understand consumer experiences with end-of-life recycling solutions. Prior to joining Google, David held positions at Nest Labs (prior to its Google acquisition), and Apple and is passionate about work that drives a healthy relationship between technology, people, and the planet.
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ALEX HAUSMAN
Director, Sustainability Reporting
Alex has over 18 years of experience working with brands like Timberland, Disney, Nike and Google to elevate their ESG strategy, disclosure and performance. He holds a bachelor degree from the University of rth Carolina and an MBA from the University of Virginia. He and his wife are proud parents to two children - Theo (14) and Marli (11).
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ANNA ESCUER
CEFNext
Lead for Carbon. Sustainability Strategy & Operations
Anna drives the development and implementation of the cross-functional carbon strategy, is responsible for the corporate carbon accounting and maintains the last pillar of Google’s carbon neutrality. Prior to Google, Anna worked as a sustainability consultant at ERM, leading the development and implementation of corporate sustainability programs through life cycle thinking and management for US and European Fortune 500 companies. Anna has a background in Chemical and Environmental Engineering.
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ANNA MEEGAN
Head of Sustainability, Hardware & Services
Anna is responsible for creating and operationalizing the sustainability strategy encompassing both environmental and community efforts related to Google’s emerging hardware brand. Anna is also a board member for the Responsible Business Alliance. Prior to her role at Google, Anna spent many years in various leadership positions at Cisco Systems, across sustainability, supply chain and customer advocacy roles. She’s also worked in finance and academics, with a Master’s degree in Earth Sciences. Anna lives in the Bay Area in California with her husband and daughter.
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LAUREN RIGGS
Winner CEF Leadership Program 2018
San Francisco Campus Manager, Real Estate and Workplace Services
Lauren Riggs, LEED AP, has been with Google since 2014. She previously was the REWS Sustainability Team Lead of sustainable office operations for Google’s global portfolio. Lauren and her team set strategy, define goals and utilize internal partnerships to implement water stewardship, waste stewardship, indoor air quality, and climate resilience plans. Before joining Google, Lauren was the Manager of LEED Performance Programs at the U.S. Green Building Council. For the last ten years, she has worked towards creating awareness on the importance of resource efficiency and high performance operations in the built environment. Lauren is an ELP Fellow, a LEED AP O&M and has a B.A. in Environmental Economics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
Latest Sustainability Reporting
(July 2024)
Highlights
- Developed a more efficient generation of AI infrastructure, which is over 67% more energy efficient than the previous version, and identified tested practices that can reduce energy required to train an AI model by up to 100 times.
- Utilized AI for sustainability, predicting extreme weather, improving traffic flow, and mapping fuel-efficient routes, enabling 2.9 million metric tons of GHG emissions reductions through routing.
- Maintained a 100% renewable energy match for the seventh consecutive year.
- Achieved 90% carbon-free energy in 10 grid regions, maintaining 64% carbon-free energy.
- Replenished an estimated one billion gallons of water, nearly double the company’s water replenishment portfolio.
- 29% of company-owned and operated data center campuses met its Zero Waste to Landfill goal.
- 34% of plastic used in products manufactured in 2023 was recycled content.
- Achieved 99% plastic-free packaging for products launched and manufactured in 2023, with packaging for two products using 100% plastic-free materials.
Recent News
2025
Life-Cycle Emissions of AI Hardware: A Cradle-To-Grave Approach and Generational Trends (Google) — Analyzes the full lifecycle emissions of Google’s AI accelerator chips, including extraction, manufacturing, disposal, and energy consumption across development and operation. This first-of-its-kind study found that innovation in chip design over two generations improved carbon-efficiency of AI workloads by 3x. It also led to a new metric: compute carbon intensity (CCI), which tracks an AI accelerator chip’s carbon emissions per unit of computation, and is helpful in evaluating AI hardware sustainability and in estimating the carbon footprint of AI training and inference. The study also found that operational electricity emissions comprise over 70% of a chip’s lifetime emissions, revealing the importance of increasing chip efficiency and decarbonizing the electricity that runs them. (Feb 2025)
G7 Hiroshima AI Process Reporting Framework (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)) — This first-of-its-kind global voluntary framework provides a place for companies to report on their efforts to promote “safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.” It monitors the application of the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct for Organisations Developing Advanced AI Systems, which lists 11 actions companies can take to mitigate AI risks. Companies can use the framework to provide comparable information on their AI risk management actions and practices to foster trust and accountability. Companies are invited to submit their inaugural reports by 15 April 2025, and then on a rolling basis. CEF members Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce have pledged to complete the inaugural framework. (Feb 2025)
JUST CAPITAL — Announced its JUST 100 list for the 2025 rankings of America’s most just companies, in partnership with CNBC. Drawing from data from 940 companies across 36 industries, the Top 100 were scored for 17 issues affecting workers, customers, shareholders, communities, and the environment (such as paying a fair wage, treating customers fairly, and prioritizing sustainability). This year 19 CEF members ranked in the JUST 100 list, and six in the Top 20, including: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (#1 for the second year in a row); HP, Inc. (#2); Bank of America (#3); Trane Technologies (#6); Applied Materials (#13); and Alphabet (#19). (Feb 2025)
Shared that it had contracted for over $100 million in carbon removal credits in 2024, roughly three times more than what the company pledged for the past year. These purchases came both from independent deals and through the buying consortium Frontier, and supported a variety of approaches (including restoring natural carbon sinks, enhanced rock weathering, biomass capture, and direct air capture) to help accelerate learning in the field and determine what works at scale. (Feb 2025)
Announced to staff in an internal memo that it will end its DEI hiring goals created in 2020 and will review its other DEI programs, trainings, and initiatives. The company noted that given its position as a U.S. federal contractor, it was evaluating changes to its programs to comply with recent court decisions and executive orders. (Feb 2025)
Signed two carbon removal offtake agreements, one with carbon removal startup Charm Industrial and one with Indian carbon removal firm Varaha. The first will use biochar (produced along with bio-oil from pyrolysis) to sequester 100,000 tons of CO2 through 2030. The second will also sequester 100,000 tons through 2030 with biochar, by adding biochar to soils via smallholder farmer projects in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Kenya. (Jan 2025)
2024
TERRADOT / FRONTIER / GOOGLE — Brazil-based enhanced rock weathering (ERW) startup Terradot signed two carbon offtake agreements. The first was facilitated by Frontier, with Frontier buyers paying $27 million to remove 90,000 tons of CO2 between 2025 and 2029. The second is with Google, which will purchase 200,000 tons of carbon removal credits, with credits being delivered by the early 2030s. Google’s agreement is the largest ERW deal to date. (Dec 2024)
GOOGLE / INTERSECT POWER / TPG RISE CLIMATE — Entered a first-of-its-kind strategic partnership to co-locate data centers with new clean energy plants to power them. Intersect Power will build the plants, with Google providing power offtake via the data center campuses. The first phase of the first co-located energy project is expected to be operational by 2026 and fully complete in 2027. The partnership aims to deliver gigawatts of data center capacity, with Intersect Power mobilizing $20 billion in renewable power infrastructure investment by 2030. (Dec 2024)
The company’s “moonshot factory,” X, is building the waste management industry’s first comprehensive database to catalog plastics in packaging, using a combination of machine learning, AI and Google’s computing power. Having started four years ago, the database already contains “millions of data points.” X is currently running a pilot project at an Oregon recycling plant scanning and identifying plastic along high-speed conveyor belts, and is also developing new sorting processes to improve mechanical recycling. (Nov 2024)
NRG ENERGY / RENEW HOME / GOOGLE CLOUD — NRG Energy and virtual power plant (VPP) company Renew Home are partnering to boost residential VPP capabilities. The companies aim to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats in Texas by 2035 (starting in 2025) and create a nearly 1 GW AI-powered VPP to lower household energy costs and improve the state’s grid resiliency. The project will be enabled by Google Cloud’s data, analytics, and AI technology, to help forecast weather conditions and renewable energy output, create predictive pricing models, and allow for more efficient production. (Nov 2024)
DCFlex —Launched by EPRI (The Electric Power Research Institute), this new initiative will explore how data centers can strengthen the electric grid, enable better asset utilization, and support the clean energy transition. DCFlex will establish 5-10 flexibility hubs, demonstrating innovative data center and power supplier strategies that enable operational and deployment flexibility, streamline grid integration, and transition backup power solutions to grid assets (with demonstration deployment starting in the first half of 2025). Founding members include CEF members: Duke Energy, Google, Meta, and NRG Energy. (Nov 2024)
SB ENERGY GLOBAL — Opened its “Orion Solar Belt,” three solar farms in Texas that together will produce 875 MW of electricity, making it one of the largest solar projects in the U.S. CEF member Google will use about 85% of the project’s power for its operations. (Oct 2024)
Shared three ways the company is putting more carbon-free energy onto grids in Asia-Pacific, including: 1) working with partners to develop a network of small-scale solar plants in space-constrained Japan; 2) collaborating with industry partners in Australia and India to create multiple-party contracts; and 3) advancing policies that promote clean energy deployment and regional market integration. (Oct 2024)
Signed the first corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to be developed by Kairos Power. The agreement is for up to 500 MW, with the first SMR online by 2030, with additional SMRs coming online through 2035. (Oct 2024)
Climate Group’s 24/7 Carbon-Free Coalition — This new pilot campaign will work to show the benefits of adopting 24/7 carbon-free electricity to local grids to match corporate electricity usage with verifiable carbon-free sources on an hourly basis. Founded by six partner companies, including CEF Member Google, the companies will help shape the pilot ahead of the campaign’s wider rollout in 2025. (Sept 2024)
Announced the planned launch of FireSat, a new global satellite constellation designed to detect and track wildfires larger than 5 x 5 meters within 20 minutes. The company, in partnership with Muon Space and Environmental Defense Fund, and through the NGO Earth Fire Alliance, will launch the first satellite in early 2025, with the full system of 50+ satellites to follow in the coming years. (Sept 2024)
Signed a first-of-its-kind deal to purchase carbon removal credits from direct air capture (DAC) provider Holocene. Google will purchase credits for 100,000 tons of CO2 at $100/ton, the lowest price on record for a DAC project. It will provide financial support upfront, with delivery of credits in the early 2030s. (Sept 2024)
Consumer Hardware Carbon Reduction Guide (Google) — Shares the company’s approach to reducing the carbon footprint of its consumer hardware products, including the entire supply chain, transportation, use, and end-of-life impact of its devices. The guide focuses on identifying “hotspots,” those parts that contribute the most to products’ overall carbon footprints, and finding ways to reduce those footprints. The guide also includes suggestions on advocacy, engaging with supply chains, and partnering with industry groups to scale impact. (Sept 2024)
Released a new Heat Resilience tool that applies AI to satellite and aerial imagery to help cities quantify how to reduce surface temperatures with cooling interventions, such as trees and reflective surfaces, down to the neighborhood level. The tool is being piloted in 14 U.S. cities, with officials using it to identify the most vulnerable neighborhoods and develop cooling strategies. (Sept 2024)
Plastic Free Packaging Design Guide (Google) — Includes insights from Google's design, engineering, and operations efforts to create plastic-free packaging that is more easily recycled. It offers practical guidance and material insights for product designers, packaging engineers, and sustainability leaders across industries. The guide is intended to share knowledge across industries and promote industry collaboration and innovation. (July 2024)
16 organizations and corporations, including CEF members Google and Microsoft, wrote a letter supporting the timely implementation of Granular Guarantees of Origin (GOs) within the established issuing bodies of the EU as a voluntary instrument for advanced clean energy products. (Granular GOs add the sub-hourly time of production to GOs, enabling the matching of produced energy to consumption on an hourly basis.) As the letter explains, Granular GOs can contribute to the clean energy transition by: enabling enhanced voluntary green claims; verifying renewable hydrogen; advancing decarbonization; enabling enhanced hedging; enabling digital innovation; and enhancing corporate disclosure. (July 2024)
iMasons Climate Accord (ICA) — The ICA, a coalition focused on carbon reduction of digital infrastructure, published an open letter from its Governing Body, including CEF members Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric (along with Digital Reality). The letter encourages vendors to create certified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), align them with existing standards, and make them readily available. EPDs, the letter explains, enable the digital infrastructure and data center industry to both estimate its emissions and use that information to procure lower-carbon materials and equipment, helping to meet its climate goals. (July 2024)
The Global Media Sustainability Framework (Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and Ad Net Zero) — This first-of-its-kind framework enables advertisers, media owners, and agencies to measure greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of reducing their carbon impacts. It includes formulas for digital, television, and out of home advertising (with print, audio, and cinema to follow), as well as data request and disclosure forms. It is supported by 30 companies, including CEF members Google, Mastercard, Meta, and Unilever. The next phase will be to establish an efficient system to transfer emissions data between buyers and sellers (with validation of media GHG data). Uptake and adoption will be tracked, with the first results published in Q2 of 2025. (June 2024)
Has entered into an agreement with electric utility NV Energy to power its Nevada data centers with advanced geothermal electricity. The deal would increase Google’s allotment of the utility’s carbon-free geothermal electricity from 3.5 MW to 115 MW in about six years. (June 2024)
DUKE ENERGY — Along with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nucor, Duke announced agreements to develop new power contract terms with electric utilities in North and South Carolina to lower the cost of and advance the building of carbon-free technologies such as nuclear technologies and batteries. Duke and the technology companies propose developing new electricity tariffs that would enable large customers to directly support carbon-free energy generation investments through innovative financing and contributions that address project risk. The new rate structures would facilitate on-site generation at customer facilities, participation in load flexibility programs, and investments in clean energy assets. (June 2024)
Symbiosis — A new coalition of corporate buyers of high-quality, nature-based carbon removals. It is an advance market commitment, of up to 20 million tons, to accelerate the demand for nature-based removals (similar to Frontier, but nature-focused). Founding members include Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce, all CEF members. (May 2024)
Announced it has signed 1.5 gigawatts of clean energy capacity within one year of debuting its more streamlined Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) Request for Proposal (RFP) approach. The company detailed two cases of using the PPA RFP, in Iowa and the Netherlands, and shared that LevelTen, which co-developed the RFP approach, has now made it available to clean energy buyers across North America and Europe. (April 2024)
Advanced Clean Electricity RFI — Google, Microsoft, and Nucor announced an effort to work together to develop new business models and aggregate their demand for advanced clean electricity technologies. They aim to accelerate development of first-of-a-kind or early commercial projects, such as advanced nuclear, next generation geothermal, and clean hydrogen. Their first step is issuing a request for information (RFI) in the U.S. for potential projects. There will be informational sessions on the RFI on 26 March at 2pm ET and 3 April at 3pm ET. (March 2024)
In response to the challenge, Google pledged to contract for at least $35 million worth of CDR credits in the next 12 months, making it the first company to commit to match the DOE’s commitment dollar for dollar. (March 2024)
The Safer Chemistry Impact Fund launched to mobilize global investment for systematically replacing hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives. This effort aims to establish a trusted data source for chemical hazard assessments and help companies make safer chemistry decisions. CEF members Apple and Google provided seed funding. (March 2024)
PR » CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS »
United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund — Added eight new corporate partners to this sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)-focused investment fund. This brings total capital to over $200 million and membership to 22. New partners include CEF member Google. (Feb 2024)
Is partnering with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to help map methane emissions. Google will apply AI and cloud computing to the imagery from EDF’s MethaneSAT satellite (launching in 2024) to trace methane emissions to their source. Google will also create a global map of oil and gas infrastructure to help understand what contributes most to emissions. (Feb 2024)
HSBC / GOOGLE CLOUD — Partnered to accelerate climate financing and support for companies in the Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability (GCR-Sustainability) program (a validation program for companies with solutions that help customers achieve sustainability goals like emissions reduction). Google Cloud will continue expanding companies in the GCR-Sustainability program and introduce them to HSBC’s climate tech team to explore venture debt financing options, as part of HSBC’s effort to deploy $1 billion of climate tech finance. (Feb 2024)
Signed its largest ever offshore wind power purchase agreements for 478 MW in the Netherlands. The company also purchased 47 MW of onshore wind in Italy, 106 MW of solar in Poland, and 84 MW of onshore wind in Belgium, adding over 700 MW of clean energy capacity in Europe. (Feb 2024)
The World Economic Forum's Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) launched a “Corporate Philanthropy Challenge for People and Planet” to mobilize $1 billion of “catalytic capital” towards climate and nature interventions by 2030. Partners include CEF Members Google (Google.org), and Salesforce. GAEA also launched its Big Bets Accelerator, aiming to amplify public-private-philanthropic partnerships to accelerate corporate action along five thematic areas: nature, industry, energy, food and climate intersections. (Jan 2024)
The Granular Certificate Trading Alliance — This collaboration, led by LevelTen Energy, is developing a first-of-its-kind trading and management platform for “granular certificates” (GCs), a type of energy attribute certificate that verifies the time and location that carbon-free energy (CFE) is generated. The effort will include both a Trading Platform to connect CFE buyers and sellers and a Management Platform to manage GCs before and after trades. Alliance members, including AES, Constellation, and CEF Members Google and Microsoft, intend to be among the first group of users when the solution launches. (Jan 2024)
2023
Catalyze — Schneider Electric announced that Google, ASM, and HP have joined the Catalyze program as new sponsors. Catalyze aims to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy across the global semiconductor value chain by combining energy purchasing power and providing suppliers with the opportunity to participate in utility-scale power purchase agreements (PPAs). (Dec 2023)
PR »
Google’s Sustainability Marketing Playbook (Google) — In partnership with Drawdown Labs, Google launched an open-source sustainability marketing playbook designed to help marketers use their trade to shape culture, change consumer behavior, and invest marketing budgets sustainably. The playbook provides guidance on 1) How to design marketing that supports change and gives preference to eco-conscious behaviors, providing many examples; 2) How to design sustainable events and experiences, such as minimizing flights, reducing food waste, and minimizing swag; and 3) How to support sustainable creative production, such as minimizing shoots, materials, and food waste. The playbook also includes additional resources and a checklist. (Nov 2023)
Clean Energy Procurement Academy — This project aims to equip companies with the technical readiness to explore and adopt clean energy. The Academy will combine online and in-person training and educational resources to help accelerate the integration of clean energy into global supply chains (for example, how to boost supply chain companies’ capacity to invest in renewables). This project was initiated through the Clean Energy Buyers Institute and with support from Google.org, and is co-founded by CEF Members by Amazon, Apple, Meta, PepsiCo, and REI; and by Nike. (Oct 2023)
Announced a series of sustainability efforts using AI. These include fuel efficient routing maps for India and Indonesia; an effort to optimize traffic lights to cut congestion (“Project Green Light” which is now in 12 cities around the world); expanding its “Tree Canopy” tool to show urban shaded areas and aid in tree planting; and new forecasting solutions for flooding and wildfires.
Developed and piloted a new way to reduce the electricity consumption of its data centers when there is high stress on local power grids, by shifting some non-urgent compute tasks to other times and locations, without impacting the Google services. This task-shifting can be initiated when receiving a notice from a grid operator of a forecasted local grid event, such as an extreme weather event. (Oct 2023)
Net Zero Innovation Hub for Data Centers — This new consortium aims to accelerate the European data center industry toward Net Zero. The Hub will foster knowledge sharing, set up innovation programs with academic and industry partners, identify challenges and facilitate calls for innovation projects to address these. It will also aims to provide a platform for engagement between data center operators and the public. The Hub is exploring projects to replace diesel generation at data centers, reuse heat, use renewables, and decarbonize building raw materials. Founding members include CEF members Google, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric.
More than 250 companies and organizations, coordinated by the Global Renewables Alliance, issued an open letter calling on world leaders to agree at COP28 on a global target to triple renewable electricity capacity to at least 11,000 GW by 2030. The companies, representing a market value of more than $12 trillion, include CEF members Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Schneider Electric, and Unilever. (Sept 2023)
MSCI / GOOGLE — MSCI expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate the development of generative AI solutions for the investment industry. The solutions will help MSCI clients better manage portfolio climate risks and opportunities, with a focus on identifying, synthesizing, and responding to risk signals, and on helping investors to measure and manage portfolio exposure to climate risk and identify low carbon investment opportunities. (Sept 2023)
Launched three mapping tools to help businesses “develop sustainability products.” Using AI and machine learning, along with aerial imagery and environmental data, the three tools provide up-to-date information about 1) estimated solar energy potential and savings at the rooftop level, 2) air quality, and 3) pollen levels. (Sept 2023)
Is joining American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) and Shell Aviation in their sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) program, Avelia, which aims to aggregate corporate demand for SAF, thus helping to scale SAF and reduce its costs. (Aug 2023)
Contrail Avoidance Study (Google Research, American Airlines, and Breakthrough Energy) — This research effort brought together satellite imagery, weather, and flight path data and used AI to develop contrail forecast maps to test whether pilots can choose routes that avoid creating contrails. Over six months, pilots flew 70 test flights using AI-based predictions and contrail models to avoid altitudes likely to create contrails. Analysis found pilots were able to reduce contrails by 54%, providing “the first proof point that commercial flights can verifiably avoid contrails and thereby reduce their climate impact.” This came at the cost of a 2% increase in fuel usage, however, as a small percentage of flights need to be adjusted to avoid the majority of contrail warming, this could be brought down to as low as 0.3% across an airline’s flights (costing about $5-25/ton of CO2 equivalent). (Aug 2023)
The Woodwell Climate Research Center and Google.org, the philanthropic arm of CEF member Google, are partnering to create new methods using satellite-based remote-sensing and AI technology to track permafrost thaw in near real-time for the first time. This three-year effort is supported with a $5 million grant and fellowship from Google.org and will help scientists and others explore permafrost changes, forecast thawing, predict disturbance events, estimate carbon and infrastructure loss from abrupt permafrost thaw, and analyze the shape and size of permafrost thaw patterns across the landscape over time. (July 2023)
FRONTIER — Facilitated a set of offtake agreements with Charm Industrial. This $53 million deal will sequester 112,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere between 2024 and 2030, storing it underground. Charm collects waste biomass from agriculture or forest management and, through pyrolysis, converts it into a bio-oil that will be injected permanently into regulated wells. The amount contracted is about ten times the amount of permanent atmospheric removal worldwide thus far and about 18 times more than Charm has sequestered to date via pilot processes. (May 2023)
Unveiled a first-of-its-kind plan with clean energy developer EDP Renewables N.A. to create a 500 MW community-based solar portfolio across 13 states that directly benefits over 25,000 households facing high energy burdens. The program will be funded, in part, through Google’s purchase of a novel renewable energy credit (REC) called the ImpactREC™, which requires direct community investment and benefits for low-to-moderate-income communities. It is the largest corporate backing of distributed solar development in the United States. (May 2023)
Launched a citizen-science experiment with marine biologists to train individuals to listen to coral reefs and identify fish sounds. Individuals can then listen to recordings from ten reefs from around the world and help build data on the health of the reefs (healthier reefs are noisier with the sounds of marine life). This effort will then be used to train AI models to listen to reefs, accelerating monitoring and measuring the success of marine protected areas and restoration programs. (April 2023)
Google Cloud Sustainability Survey 2023 (Google Cloud) — ESG efforts dropped from the #1 organizational priority in 2022 to #3 in 2023, according to this survey of 1,476 top-level executives in 16 countries. Executives cite macroeconomic issues and external pressure to cut sustainability initiatives and prioritize optimizing client relationships and driving revenues. Other key findings include (April 2023):
- The number of sustainability programs moving into the implementation phase was down 8% from 2022;
- 72% of respondents agreed that, "Everyone says they want to advance sustainability efforts, but no one knows how to actually do it,” up 7% from last year;
- Corporate greenwashing remained pervasive concerns among this year’s respondents, with 59% admitting to overstating or inaccurately representing their sustainability activities;
- 87% of respondents are looking to incorporate better measurement into their organizations to help make more accurate sustainability targets;
- 84% believe their sustainability initiatives would be more effective if they had a better structure with clear accountability;
- 96% of companies have at least one program in place to advance their sustainability initiatives, and participation in programs remains mostly unchanged from 2022.
The Open for Business Coalition, made up of 34 global companies, denounced anti-LGBTQ legislation passed by Uganda's parliament last week, warning it would curb investment flows, deter tourists, undermine companies’ ability to hire a diverse workforce, and damage the country's economy. The legislation criminalizes identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer, and imposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” The coalition includes CEF members Dow, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Mastercard, McKinsey & Co., Meta, Microsoft, and Unilever. (April 2023)
Improving Procurement for Clean Energy PPAs (Google and LevelTen Energy) — Established a new standardized approach that reduces the time to negotiate and execute a clean energy purchase power agreement (PPA) by “roughly 80%.” Most PPA negotiations are long, slowed by limited personnel or time and thus create barriers for clean energy development. This scalable approach improves both the PPA contract, balancing risks between buyer and seller, and the Request for Proposal (RFP) process, allowing sellers to customize risk offsets, verify how their offers are evaluated, and create pricing based on final contractual details. While currently only available to sellers negotiating with Google, this approach will be made available to buyers and sellers later this year. (March 2023)
GOOGLE / SOL SYSTEMS — Announced a new renewable energy procurement and investment strategy in North and South Carolina that enables the development of new solar projects and supports local communities where the projects are built. Along with investing in the development of 225 MW of new solar projects and 18 MW of battery storage, Google and Sol Systems will provide four community organizations capital to reduce energy burdens in under-resourced and minority communities by enabling critical home repairs and efficiency improvements. (March 2023)
CORPORATE KNIGHTS — Released its 2023 Global 100 List, ranking the world’s most sustainable companies along 25 indicators, out of 6,000 public companies with revenues of over $1 billion. The top list has outperformed the MSCI All Country World Index on an annual basis for seven of the past 11 years. The top spot went to Schnitzer Steel Industries, a steel recycler that increased energy productivity by 74%, water productivity by 69%, and carbon productivity by 55% in 2021. CEF Members in the Global 100 include: Schneider Electric (#7), Alphabet (#26), Ecolab (#30), Unilever (#38), HP (#39), Cisco (#48), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (#67), and Apple (#73). (Jan 2023)
Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3) — This RMI initiative is working to catalyze industry and transform policy to support scaling virtual power plants (VPPs) in ways that help advance affordable, reliable electric sector decarbonization by overcoming barriers to VPP market growth. VPPs are grid-integrated aggregations of many distributed energy resources, such as EVs, solar PV arrays, battery energy storage systems, and smart thermostats, and can help support cost-effective energy production, emissions reductions, and a more resilient energy grid. VP3 will work to research and communicate VPP benefits, develop industry-wide best practices, standards, and roadmaps, and inform and shape policy development. VP3 founding members include CEF members: Ford, General Motors, and Google Nest (Google). (Jan 2023)
2022
Contrail Impact Task Force — Brings together major airlines, aircraft makers, and leading contrail researchers to explore opportunities to address the warming impacts of certain contrails. Specifically the task force aims to share and expand the latest science on the impact of contrails; develop actionable strategies to avoid warming contrails; analyze the operational and financial challenges of implementing potential solutions; and establish a roadmap for implementation and validation of mitigation tools. CEF members Boeing and Google (Google Research) are involved. (Nov 2022)
Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC) — ACEC aims to drive corporate clean energy procurement in Asia, accelerating its overall demand and supply. ACEC will strategically improve the policy and regulatory environments for clean energy, in both national and regional Asian markets. The coalition seeks to align the world’s leading clean energy buyers, project developers and financiers, to help policymakers, utilities and energy regulators innovate and deploy cost effective clean technologies across the Asia-Pacific region. Founding members include CEF members Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Google, Meta, and Samsung. (Nov 2022)
The Semiconductor Climate Consortium — Aims to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the semiconductor value chain and will work together along three objectives: collaborating on common approaches and technology innovations to reduce GHG emissions; publicly report progress on Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions annually; and set near- and long-term decarbonization targets with a net zero goal by 2050. The consortium is made up of 60 founding members, including CEF members: Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Schneider Electric. Companies can learn how to join here. (Nov 2022)
Announced it would buy nearly 1 Gigawatt of electricity from four of SB Energy Global’s Texas facilities as part of its effort to operate data centers on carbon-free energy by 2030. The facilities, currently under development, are expected to be operational by mid-2024. (Nov 2022)
More than 330 businesses and financial institutions from 52 countries, with combined revenues of over $1.5 trillion, urged world leaders to move beyond voluntary actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in a new statement. The statement advocates for the leaders to adopt “mandatory requirements for all large businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature by 2030.” CEF Members involved include BASF, Google, International Paper, McKinsey & Co., Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Schneider Electric, Tiffany & Co., Unilever, and WM. Businesses can sign the statement here. (Oct 2022)
C40 / GOOGLE — Launched a new 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy for Cities program to support cities around the world to accelerate the decarbonization of regional electricity grids, running entirely on carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7 CFE). The program will develop and implement high-impact strategies, practices and tools to enable cities to achieve 24/7 CFE, and support cities seeking to lead in the energy transition. Initial pilot cities include London, Copenhagen, and Paris. (Oct 2022)
Launched a 10-week circular economy accelerator program "for Seed to Series A technology startups and non-profit organizations based in North America and Asia Pacific." The program, which is open for applications, will provide access to Google’s programs, products, people, and network to those working to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. (Oct 2022)
The U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) Upskilling Initiative, a public-private endeavor to support training and education in digital skills for women and girls in 8 countries, including Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Fourteen U.S. companies, including CEF members Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Google, HP, Mastercard, Microsoft, and Visa, will each provide 500,000 or more digital upskilling opportunities by 2032, such as providing training in data science, cyber-security, AI, and robotics; providing female small business owners with toolkits to help with website planning, social media, and marketing; and supporting digital leadership and entrepreneurship training in rural areas. (Sept 2022)
FRONTIER — Carbon removal funding venture Frontier has announced its initial spend of $2.4 million, facilitated on behalf of funding partner Stripe, to be allocated among six carbon removal startups. The Frontier Fund, with a current total of $924 million from CEF members Alphabet (Google), Meta and McKinsey & Co., Shopify, and Stripe, was established as an advance market commitment (AMC) guaranteeing future sales for companies working to develop carbon removal technologies and scale operations. Frontier is the first customer for each of the six companies selected, and another round of funding to additional recipients is planned for the fall. (July 2022)
Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity initiative (VCMI) — With the backing of the UK Government, announced a provisional Claims Code of Practice (“the Code”) that applies a credibility rating to companies’ carbon credit offset claims. To be awarded any of the three tiers of VCMI accreditation (Bronze, Silver, or Gold) each year, companies must take the following steps (June 2022):
- Meet a set of prerequisites. These include (but are not limited to) a 2050 net-zero commitment across Scopes 1–3 and adherence to the SBTi maximum credit coverage guidance of 5% for Scopes 1– 2 and 33% for Scope 3.
- Identify enterprise-wide and brand-, product-, or service-specific claims.
- Purchase high-quality carbon credits, as determined by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM) and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
- Provide regular, transparent, detailed reports on the use of carbon credits.
The Code will be tested by companies including CEF members Google and Unilever through the end of 2022, and a revised version is expected in early 2023.
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First Movers Coalition — The flagship public-private partnership announced a major expansion to more than 50 corporate members—including CEF members Alphabet, Microsoft, Ecolab, Ford, and Schneider Electric—worth about $8.5 trillion and a total of nine governments comprising over 40% of the global economy. The coalition, which aims to create market demand for early-stage technology that cuts emissions from hard-to-abate industry sectors, also launched new sector initiatives in aluminum and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). In the Aluminum sector, Ball Corporation, Ford, Novelis, Trafigura, and Volvo Group committed to have near-zero emissions from 10% of their primary aluminum purchases by 2030. New CDR sector 2030 commitments include (May 2022):
- Alphabet, Microsoft, and Salesforce collectively committed $500 million to CDR.
- Boston Consulting Group (BCG) pledged to remove 100,000 metric tons of carbon.
- AES, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and Swiss Re each committed to 50,000 metric tons of carbon removal, equivalent to a $25 million investment from each company.
- Members must demonstrate that the carbon can be stored for more than 1,000 years.
- Breakthrough Catalyst, Carbon Direct, Frontier, and South Pole joined the coalition as implementation partners for the CDR initiative.
GOOGLE / UNITED NATIONS — Expanded their climate change search initiative, wherein
Google users searching for “climate change” get top results from the United Nations, to include nine additional languages: Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese. The initiative began in fall 2021 in English, Spanish, and French, and the new additions are part of a
growing effort to counteract rampant misinformation about climate change and ensure consistent, accurate search results—and effective action opportunities —for Google users around the world. (May 2022)
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Frontier Fund — Stripe, with supportive funding from Shopify and CEF members Alphabet (Google), Meta, and McKinsey & Co., launched an Advance Market Commitment" (AMC) fund to buy an initial $925 million of permanent carbon removal by 2030. Inspired by vaccine development funding mechanisms, the fund intends to scale solutions that meet several criteria, including the ability to permanently store carbon over 1,000 years, cost less than $100 per ton at scale, sequester at least 0.5 gigatons of carbon annually, and be verifiable. Notably, as emphasized on the Frontier website, “Frontier aims to help create net new carbon removal supply rather than compete over what exists today.” Other companies are encouraged to participate. (April 2022)
Google Nest, Resideo, and distributed energy resource (DER) software company Voltus are teaming up to help electricity providers harness the grid-stabilizing potential of residential smart thermostats. They have created a program, in partnership with PJM Interconnection—the largest electric grid operator in the United States—that offers customers incentives to grant permission for grid operators to remotely control their HVAC usage during peak times. (April 2022)
Closing the Plastics Circularity Gap (Google, AFARA, IHS Markit) — Offers a potential path to “create irreversible momentum towards a circular economy for plastics and simultaneously end our reliance on fossil fuel feedstocks.” Provides an intervention model that quantifies the impacts of potential solutions (e.g., technology, investment, procurement, policy), and prioritizes potential solutions into 10 strategic interventions that are either low- or no-risk under multiple future scenarios. The report claims that (March 2022):
- Strategic interventions could reduce the plastic circularity gap by 59 percent, cumulatively diverting 4.5 billion metric tons of plastics by 2040.
- It’s projected that the price of producing plastics through circular supply chains is 28-34% lower than through virgin supply chains, when averaged across 2020-40.
- To reach that, an injection of $634 billion to $995 billion in capital is necessary over the next 20 years.
Full Report | Executive Summary
“The Business Carbon Calculator” (Normative, with support from Google.org) — A new carbon calculator to help small- to medium-sized enterprises measure, track, and reduce their carbon emissions. The tool is an extension of the Industry CO² Insights tool and is available for free through the SME Climate Hub. (March 2022)
Published a progress report detailing its engagement with global partners to advance the development and deployment of hourly Time-based Energy Attribute Certificates (T-EACs) within and outside of Google, accelerating the development of tools and systems to unlock energy data and hourly matching, and creating technical standards to drive the widespread adoption of T-EACs”). (March 2022)
Pledged to cut food waste in half for each Googler and send zero food waste to landfills by 2025. The company will also provide $1 million of funding for the ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund to accelerate and scale food waste solutions in North America. (March 2022)
Shareholder advocacy group As You Sow released a report ranking 55 of the largest US companies’ progress in aligning their GHG emission reductions with 1.5°C of warming. Only three companies—CEF members Ecolab, Microsoft, and PepsiCo—received an overall “A” grade, and two—CEF members Alphabet and Apple—received an overall “B” grade, with 84% of companies receiving an overall “D” or “F.” Zero companies received an “A” for GHG target setting. (March 2022)
Consumer Electronic Recycling Pilot — A unique collaboration incubated at CEF, in which Google, Apple, Amazon, Dell, and Microsoft recently launched a doorstep electronics recycling pilot program in Denver, CO. In partnership with Retrievr, an innovative start-up with roots in Philadelphia, these brands hope to increase consumer recycling rates, doing so in a way that is responsible and safe, while also being convenient and affordable. (March 2022)
Carbon Sense suite (Google) — A new suite of Google’s existing tools to help companies report on and reduce the carbon emissions associated with their Google Cloud usage. It includes the Carbon Footprint solution and new Active Assist sustainability recommendations to estimate the gross emissions saved by removing idle projects. (Feb 2022)
AS YOU SOW / CORPORATE KNIGHTS “CLEAN200” LIST — Shareholder advocacy group As You Sow and Corporate Knights released their annual list of the 200 largest public companies “ranked by green energy revenues.” On average, it found 58% of revenues earned by Clean200 companies to be “clean,” up from 39% in 2021 and significantly above the 20% average for their MSCI ACWI peers. The top 10 includes CEF members Apple (#1), Alphabet (#2), Cisco Systems (#7), HP (#8), Schneider Electric (#9), and Siemens (#10). (Feb 2022)
Corporations bought a record 31.1 gigawatts of clean energy through PPAs in 2021,up nearly 24% since 2020 and equivalent to over 10% of renewable energy capacity added globally, according to BloombergNEF. Technology companies bought the most clean energy, and the top 10 corporate buyers overall include CEF members Amazon (#1), Microsoft (#2), Meta (#3), BASF (#4), and Google (#6). (Feb 2022)
Google is joining Ford as a founding member of Michigan Central, a 30-acre, mobility-focused innovation district in Detroit, created to accelerate the development of electric and autonomous vehicles, and help build a skilled workforce. The companies will work with startups and other companies to solve mobility challenges, and Google will focus on training and educating Detroiters for jobs needed for the future transportation system. Ford will also start accepting the Google certificate as a qualification for relevant jobs. (Feb 2022)
JUST CAPITAL 2022 “JUST 100 LIST” — 100 companies out of 954 public companies scored by JUST Capital, in collaboration with CNBC, made the 2022 “JUST 100” list, which recognizes companies that perform the best against 20 “priorities for just business behavior” (e.g., accountability to all stakeholders, paying a fair, living wage) that are identified based on polling of the American public. The top 10 includes CEF members Alphabet (#1), Microsoft (#3), Bank of America (#5), Apple (#7), and Cisco Systems (#10). (Jan 2022)
2021
COMMONWEALTH FUSION SYSTEMS (CFS) — CFS, a nuclear fusion startup, raised over $1.8 billion in Series B funding to commercialize fusion energy. Funding includes capital to build and operate SPARC, the world’s first “commercially relevant” net energy fusion machine, and to begin work on ARC, the world’s first commercial fusion power plant.Investors include Bill Gates, Emerson Collective (founded by Laurene Powell Jobs), and CEF member Google. Current investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures. (Dec 2021)
System-Level Impacts of 24/7 Carbon-Free Electricity Procurement
(Princeton researchers Qingyu Xu, Aneesha Manocha, Neha Patankar, and Jesse Jenkins) —
Analyzes the impacts of commercial and industrial buyers using 24/7 carbon-free electricity (CFE) procurement.
It finds that 24/7 CFE
“enables deeper emissions reductions” and "accelerates full-scale transformation of electricity grids" but at a potentially significant cost for early leaders.
The research was supported by a grant from CEF member
Google.
(Nov 2021)
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Composting Consortium — A new consortium to pilot composting solutions and create an infrastructure and technologies roadmap that increases the recovery of compostable food scraps and food packaging. Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy is the managing partner. CEF member
PepsiCo and the NextGen Consortium (co-founded by CEF member
McDonald’s) are founding partners. Advisory partners include CEF member
Google and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (which includes CEF members
3M, Amazon, BASF, Dow, ExxonMobil, HP Inc., Kimberly-Clark, McDonald’s, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Sealed Air, Unilever,
and Waste Management). (Nov 2021)
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Electronics Hibernation
(Google) —
Identifies five major barriers to consumer electronics recycling and
presents
opportunities to prevent “electronics hibernation.”The research is based on conversations with consumers. (Nov 2021)
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1.5°C Supplier Engagement Guide
(1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders /
Exponential Roadmap Initiative)
—
A
new online platform with open-source tools, case studies, and resources
to help businesses engage with their suppliers to halve GHG emissions by 2030. CEF members
Google, Oracle,
Mastercard, Microsoft, and
Unilever
belong to the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, the last three of which also belong to 1.5°C Supply Chain Leaders.
(Nov 2021)
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Alliance for Clean Air — A new global, cross-sector initiative to combat air pollution.
The 10 founding companies—including CEF members
Bloomberg, Google,
and
Siemens—committed to
measuring their air-pollution footprint within 12 months,
tracking humans’ pollution exposure,
setting pollution-reduction targets, and
engaging key stakeholders. The alliance was launched by the World Economic Forum in partnership with the
Clean Air Fund. (Nov 2021)
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Google Cloud
is
partnering with 5 companies to accelerate data-driven innovation to help
businesses and governments tackle climate-risk exposure. The companies—CARTO,
Climate Engine,
Geotab,
NGIS, and
Planet—will bring their applications to Google Cloud, as well as
over 50 petabytes of
satellite imagery, mobility, demographics, and telematics
data. Notably, the NGIS platform can “illuminate” company
supply chains, and Climate Engine will input
datasets on climate risks such as wildfire spread and water use. (Oct 2021)
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The CEOs of over 1,000 companies
with a combined $4.7 trillion in annual revenue
sent an
open letter
to all heads of state
ahead of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
(COP15), urging them to adopt a concrete commitment to reverse nature loss by 2030.
They said the July 2021
draft plan for a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
“lacks the ambition and specificity required to drive the urgent action needed.” Signatories include the CEOs of CEF members
BASF, Google, International Paper, McKinsey & Co., Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Schneider Electric, Tiffany & Co., Unilever,
and Waste Management. (Oct 2021)
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Google
unveiled a
new suite of sustainability features that give consumers information so they can choose to reduce their GHG emissions, as part of its goal to enable a “billion sustainable actions”
by 2022.
Notably,
Google Maps will show the most
eco-friendly travel route; Google Flights will display various
flights’ CO2 emissions;
and the Google hotel search will show whether a
hotel has sustainability commitments and/or independent environmental certifications. (Oct 2021)
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Will institute a
new policy on November 1 that
prohibits Google advertisers and publishers, as well as YouTube creators, from monetizing "content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."Google says it will "look carefully at the context in which claims are made” and use both automated tools and “human review” to enforce the policy. (Oct 2021)
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Drawdown Labs—Project Drawdown’s private-sector consortium for scaling net-zero solutions—released a
new guide to
help all “climate-concerned employees” apply their skills to the climate crisis and hold their company accountable for climate action.
“Climate Solutions at Work: Unleashing your employee power” highlights
job functions with “untapped potential to drive climate action” and opportunities for employees to push their company “beyond net zero.” The Drawdown Labs consortium includes CEF members
Google and
Trane Technologies. (Oct 2021)
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24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact —
A
new group of energy suppliers, buyers, solutions providers, investors, and governments is partnering with UN Energy and Sustainable Energy for All to achieve cost-effective, carbon-free energy (CFE) “every hour of every day, everywhere” by 2030. Signatories—which include
Google, Iron Mountain, and
Ørsted—committed to
creating their own targets for reaching 24/7 CFE,
measuring and reporting
against their progress, and
taking action to transform energy procurement, policy design, technology, and energy-data transparency. (Oct 2021)
MORE »
“World’s To-Do List” campaign —
The
Global Goals Business Avengers—a business group that includes CEF members
Google and
Unilever—launched an awareness campaign to show support for and action towards achieving the 17 Global SDGs.
(Sept 2021)
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Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM) — The taskforce has formed an
independent Board of Directors to govern voluntary carbon markets, with
22 members
representing 12 countries (40% in the Global South); the NGO, academic, corporate, and financial sectors; Indigenous people; and local communities.
The Board will be supported by TSVCM’s founding sponsors, an Executive Secretariat, an Expert Panel, a Senior Advisory Council, and a
Member
consultation group of 250 organizations (including CEF members
Bank of America, BlackRock, BloombergNEF, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Boeing, Chevron, Delta, Google, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Siemens,
and Unilever). (Sept 2021)
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RE100 LEADERSHIP AWARDS – Four companies were honored by Climate Group’s RE100 initiative for “pioneering work in accelerating the global transition to 100% renewable electricity” (Sept 2021):
- 3M - Market Trailblazer Award
- The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. - Enterprising Leader Award
- Google - Changemaker Award
- Novo Nordisk - Key Collaborator Award
Climate TRACE, a coalition launched in July 2020 to independently track GHG emissions globally through satellite imagery, AI, remote sensing, and data science, released its first results, which suggest that global emissions have been vastly undercounted. The coalition—convened by Al Gore, think tank RMI, TransitionZero, WattTime, and others, and supported through initial funding from Google.org and a team of Google.org Fellows—now includes 11 nonprofits, tech companies, and universities, with over 50 organizations having contributed datasets and AI models. Key findings of the initial results, which show emissions trends across 10 sectors and 38 subsectors, include (Sept 2021):
- Of the world’s “top countries” that submit regular emissions inventories, the actual amount of oil and gas emissions may be nearly double—1 billion tons higher than—what’s been reported.
- It’s likely that over 1 billion additional tons of CO2 equivalent have been uncounted by countries that aren’t required regularly report on oil and gas emissions data
The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) updated its
Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment
with new requirements for tackling embodied carbon. Starting January 1, 2023, businesses must account for the whole-life impact of all new buildings and major renovations by 2030, as well as track and report business activities influencing indirect reductions of whole-life carbon emissions. The WorldGBC Corporate Advisory Board includes CEF members
Google, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and
Siemens.
(Sept 2021)
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Announced it is partnering with sustainability certification group
Planet Mark to
create a new training program for the UK government that helps SMEs reduce their emissions. The program will be delivered through Google’s digital skills training program, Digital Garage, and
companies completing the training will be encouraged to sign a net-zero commitment through the government’s
SME climate hub. (Sept 2021)
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CHEVRON / DELTA / GOOGLE —
Signed a memorandum of understanding to
measure sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) emissions and create a “more transparent model” for analyzing potential emissions reductions. The Chevron Products Company division will produce a test batch of SAF and sell it to Delta’s Los Angeles International Airport hub, with Google Cloud building an analytics framework to analyze the emissions data. (Sept 2021)
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Committed to
replenishing 20% more water than its data centers and offices use by 2030.
It consumed 3.4 billion gallons of water in 2019. (Sept 2021)
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Shareholder advocacy group
As You Sow
released an updated “Racial Justice Scorecard” for the S&P 500, using 26 key performance indicators on racial justice, including four new indicators on “environmental racism.” CEF members
Alphabet, General Motors, HPE,
and
Microsoft
are among the list’s
top 10 best-performing companies. The NGO plans to
initiate conversations with poor scorers and file shareholder proposals at those companies’ annual meetings in 2022. (Aug 2021)
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Nearly 100 leaders of companies, associations, and organizations—including CEF members
Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Amazon, Alphabet, General Motors, Mastercard, HP Inc., Cisco,
and
TPG Capital—sent a letter urging Congress to pass legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for the “Dreamers”—who would benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The leaders were organized by the
Coalition for the American Dream. (Aug 2021)
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2021 Sustainability Leaders (GlobeScan, the SustainAbility Institute by ERM) — A survey of nearly 700 sustainability experts in over 70 countries on how the pandemic will affect the global sustainable development agenda. The experts rank the top 15 companies displaying corporate sustainability leadership, including Unilever as #1 and Microsoft, Danone, Google, and Walmart. (Aug 2021)
TPG —
Announced a
first close of $5.4 billion for the TPG Rise Climate Fund, the largest climate-focused fund in the world. Over
20 global companies—including CEF members
3M, ADM,
Alphabet, Apple,
Bank of America, Boeing, Dow, GE, General Motors, Honeywell,
and
TD Bank Group—participated in the close and will form a
Rise Climate Coalition. The fund will take a broad sector approach, focusing on growth equity to value-added infrastructure to
driving solutions for 5 climate sub-sectors. (Aug 2021)
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Over 150 companies that belong to the Business for Voting Rights Group, including CEF members
Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and
Unilever,
sent a letter to U.S. lawmakers urging them to reintroduce and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would help prevent voting discrimination and establish an improved system for states to report changes to election law. (July 2021)
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75 companies—including
3M, Apple, General Motors, Google, HP Inc., and Unilever—urged lawmakers to support a clean energy standard and require power companies supply zero-carbon electricity. Organized by
Ceres, the Environmental Defense Fund, and others, they wrote in an open letter, "A federal clean electricity standard should achieve 80 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030 on the pathway to 100% clean power by 2035." (July 2021)
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RE100 — The RE100 companies, which are committed to 100% renewable electricity, now have an electricity demand greater than that of the U.K. or Italy and are on track to save CO2 emissions equal to burning over 118 million tons of coal per year. RE100 members include
CEF Members:
3M, Apple, Bank of America, Bloomberg, Dell Technologies, Ecolab, Facebook, General Motors, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Mastercard, McKinsey & Co., Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens AG, TD Bank Group, Trane Technologies, Unilever,
and Visa.
(July 2021)
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Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Autodesk, eBay, Facebook, Intel, and Salesforce urged the SEC to mandate regular corporate climate-related disclosures. They said the SEC should utilize existing frameworks to ensure disclosure consistency and comparability and that businesses should measure and report relevant GHG by relevant global standards. (June 2021)
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Arizona Water Conservation Collaborative
—
Corporations and foundations—including
Intel Corp., Google, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Ecolab, and Target—committed a total of $38 million in funding to conserve nearly 49 billion gallons of water and avoid the first water shortage in Lake Mead. Led by the state of Arizona, Business for Water Stewardship, and the Environmental Defense Fund, this is the single largest multi-sector, collaborative drought-response effort in the state. (June 2021)
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Will launch the second $5 million Google for Startups
Black Founders Fund
in the U.S. to provide $100,000 in non-dilutive funding to nominees from past fund recipients or to startups from U.S. Google for Startups programs and partner communities. (June 2021)
MORE »
Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions
(BASCS) — A new collaborative knowledge-sharing network serving all organizations seeking to engage, invest in, and scale climate solutions.
Founding members include
Amazon, Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce, Unilever,
and Workday. Nonprofit and public partners include
Environmental Defense Fund, United Nations Environment Programme, and World Wildlife Fund,
withBSR serving as Secretariat. (June 2021)
MORE »
EnergyTag Initiative — This new global initiative, seeking to enable 24/7 clean energy tracking, unveiled 6 international projects to test and demonstrate improved clean energy traceability. The projects will test an hourly energy certificate mechanism allowing customers to “tag” electricity with the time and source of production to ensure clean power is constantly available. The initiative includes over 100 utilities, government agencies, NGOs, and companies, including Enel, Engie, Google, Microsoft, and PwC. (May 2021)
Announced 5 of its global data center sites are operating near or at 90% carbon-free energy. (April 2021)
Google Earth Timelapse (Alphabet Inc.) — A new Google Earth feature vividly illustrates decades of climate change in seconds by compiling 25 million satellite images of the planet’s surface taken over 37 years. The Timelapse tool was created in partnership with NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab. (April 2021)
Hundreds of executives, nonprofits, and companies—including Amazon, Apple, Bank of America, BlackRock, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Facebook, Ford, General Motors, Google, JetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, and McKinsey & Co.—signed a public statement opposing “any discriminatory legislation.” The statement, titled “We Stand for Democracy,” was featured in advertisements in the New York Times and The Washington Post. (April 2021)
More than 300 businesses representing over $3 trillion in annual revenue and employing nearly 6 million US workers signed an open letter calling upon President Biden to adopt a GHG emissions reduction target of at least 50% by 2030 (2005 baseline). Organized by the We Mean Business coalition and Ceres, signatories of the letter included: Apple, Dell Technologies, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Siemens, Trane Technologies, Unilever, and VF Corporation. (April 2021)
Member companies of the Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance (PREF)—including Amazon, Bank of America, BlackRock, Google, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo—sent a letter to Texas officials opposing 3 energy-related bills, fearing they will upend the economics of wind and solar power in the state. (April 2021)
A coalition of companies, environmentalists, and energy trade groups—including Google, HPE, and Trane Technologies—sent President Biden a letter and memo urging adoption of “higher-impact carbon-free federal electricity procurement.” (April 2021)
Businesses Support Moratorium on Deep Seabed Mining — A global moratorium on deep seabed mining initiated by WWF and BMW drew support from Google, Samsung, and Volvo. The companies pledged not to source any minerals from the deep sea, refrain from using mineral resources from the deep sea in their supply chains, and not finance deep-sea mining activities. Companies may sign the moratorium statement here. (April 2021)
Announced a new Google Maps app feature to direct drivers along routes estimated to generate the lowest carbon emissions based on traffic, slopes, and other factors. The new feature will launch in the U.S. later this year. (April 2021)
Circular Electronic Partnership (CEP) — A new initiative launched by 6 major organizations—GeSI, GEC, PACE, RBA, WBCSD, and WEF—to develop a circular economy for electronics, the fastest growing waste stream in the world, by 2030. CEP has published a roadmap that identifies 6 opportunity pathways to achieve circularity along the value chain, including (1) designing for circularity, (2) driving demand for circular products and services, (3) scaling responsible business models, (4) increasing official collection rates, (5) aggregating for reuse and recycling, and (6) scaling secondary material markets. Member companies include Cisco, Dell, Google, and Microsoft. (March 2021)
Released new data indicating its hourly Carbon Free Energy (CFE) Percentage for the majority of its global data centers to help companies make informed decisions on where to locate services across Google’s cloud infrastructure. (March 2021)
Piloting a new approach to certify and match clean energy with its data centers on an hourly basis: “Time-based Energy Attribute Certificates (T-EACs).” (March 2021)
Over 170 CEOs from U.S. companies issued a public letter to Congress backing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package and urged rapid, bipartisan adoption. CEF member companies involved included BlackRock, Comcast, Google, JetBlue, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, Siemens, and Visa. (March 2021)
A major new coalition, “America is All In,” launched to mobilize bold climate ambitions nationally and uphold the federal government’s commitment to climate action—specifically to cut U.S. emissions in half or more by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. Co-led by UN Special Climate Envoy Michael Bloomberg, the coalition effectively merges We Are Still In and America’s Pledge and is the most expansive effort ever assembled to support climate action in the U.S., involving U.S. businesses, cities, states, tribal nations, schools, and faith groups, health care organizations, and cultural institutions. Large companies involved include: 3M, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, ADM, Autodesk, BASF, Best Buy, Cargill, Carrier Corporation, The Clorox Company, Coca-Cola, Danone N.A., Dell Technologies, Dow Inc., DSM N.A., DuPont, eBay, Edison International, Facebook, Gap, General Mills, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP, Inc., IKEA U.S., Johnson & Johnson, Johnson Controls, Kellogg Company, LafargeHolcim, Levi Strauss & Co., L’Oréal, Mars Incorporated, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Mondelez International, National Grid, Nestle, NIKE, Novozymes, PG&E Corporation, PepsiCo, Salesforce, Siemens, Sony Corporation of America, Starbucks, Steelcase, Target, Tiffany & Co., Trane Technologies, Verizon, VF Corporation, Walmart, and Waste Management. (February 2021)
The Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance updated its “Deal Tracker,” highlighting the largest corporate renewable energy purchasers in 2020. The top 10 included the following (February 2021):
- Amazon (3.163 GW)
- Google (1.040 GW)
- Verizon (.840 GW)
- McDonald’s (.750 GW)
- Facebook (.725 GW)
- General Motors (.610 GW)
- Nucor (.325 GW)
- Evraz North America (.300 GW)
- Lowe’s (.250 GW)
- Nestlé (.250 GW)
Corporate Knights and As You Sow released the 2021 Carbon Clean200 list, which ranks the world’s publicly listed companies leading the way with solutions for the transition to a clean energy future. The top 10 included the following (February 2021):
- Alphabet (Google)
- Siemens
- TSMC
- SAP
- Iberdrola
- HP
- Cisco
- Schneider Electric
- Tesla
- Unilever
Ranked #7 on Fortune list of “World’s Most Admired Companies,”which ranks companies based on their performance against nine criteria, including investment value, quality of management, products, social responsibility, ability to attract talent, and more. (February 2021)
Ford announced it would invest $7 billion in autonomous vehicles and at least $22 billion in electric vehicles through 2025, nearly doubling its initial EV commitment. Separately, Ford announced a 6-year strategic partnership with Google to “accelerate the automaker’s digital transformation” and “reinvent the connected vehicle experience.” (February 2021)
Corporate Knights released the
2021 Global 100 Index, which ranks the
world’s most sustainable companies based on environmental and financial indicators. CEF members honored include
Cisco,
Google,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
HP,
Trane Technologies,
Siemens, and
Unilever. (January 2021)
MORE »
Google announced $150 million in donations to promote vaccine education and equitable access and will open up Google spaces to serve at vaccination sites as needed. The company will also begin to show state and regional vaccine distribution information in search results to help people find accurate and timely information. (January 2021)
The Renewable Energy Buyers Association (REBA) issued a statement signed by 36 companies — including Amazon, Clorox, Facebook, GM, Google, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and Unilever — proposing federal policy priorities to help accelerate the adoption of a customer-centric clean energy transition. Priorities include: 1) expanding and enhancing wholesale energy markets; 2) harmonizing clean-energy procurement and standards; 3) supporting the innovation and commercialization of energy R&D. (January 2021)
The World Economic Forum
launched Partnering for Racial Justice in Business Initiative, a new coalition to build more equitable and just workplaces. Three steps required to join the initiative include: 1)
Racial and ethnic equity must be placed
on the board’s agenda; 2) Companies must
make at least one commitment towards racial and ethnic justice in their organizations; 3) Companies must put a
long-term strategy in place towards
becoming an anti-racist organization. Founding members include
Bank of America, BlackRock, Bloomberg, Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, Mastercard, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Unilever,
and UPS.
(January 2021)
MORE
»
The World Economic Forum
launched
the Essential Digital Infrastructure and Services Network (EDISON) Alliance to accelerate
digital inclusion, address inequality, and connect critical sectors of the economy. This is the
first global cross-sector Alliance focused on digital equality and includes
Google, Mastercard,
and Verizon.
(January 2021)
MORE
»
2020
Google set three new sustainability goals to incorporate recycled or renewable material in at least 50% of all plastic used across its hardware products by 2025, achieve UL 2799 Zero Waste to Landfill certification at all final assembly manufacturing sites by 2022, and make its product packaging 100% plastic free and 100% recyclable by 2025. (November 2020)
Google parent company Alphabet has issued $5.75 billion in sustainability bonds, marking the largest sustainability or green bond issuance by any company to date. The proceeds from these sustainability bonds will fund ongoing and new environmentally or socially responsible projects across eight areas, including clean energy, affordable housing, racial equality, support for small business and COVID-19 response, and more. (August 2020)
Google will partner with WWF Sweden to create a digital environmental data platform that improves the accuracy and relevance of raw material assessments for the fashion industry. (June 2020)
Google has pledged to stop building custom artificial intelligence tools for oil and gas extraction. (May 2020)
Google unveiled a “first-of-its kind” carbon-intelligent computing platform to help achieve 24x7 carbon-free energy for its data centers. The platform uses “carbon-aware load shifting” to adjust the timing of non-urgent compute tasks in data centers to when low-carbon power sources are most available. (May 2020)
Google is partnering with Apple to develop technology that enables mobile devices to trade information over Bluetooth connections to alert people when they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. The technology will require users to opt into the system and will not track the location or identity of users, according to Reuters. (April 2020)
Google committed more than $800 million to support small- and medium-sized businesses, health organizations and governments, and health professionals on the frontlines of the pandemic. The company also partnered with their supplier Magid Glove & Safety to provide up to 3 million face masks to the CDC Foundation. (March 2020)
IBM launched the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium to provide scientists with supercomputing capacity for projects that “have the most immediate impact” on global efforts to combat COVID-19. Consortium partners include Amazon, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, MIT, NASA, and more. (March 2020)
Ranked #2 on the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance “Deal Tracker” list, which highlights the largest corporate renewable energy purchasers in 2019. Google purchased 1.1 GW in 2019. (Feb 2020)
Included on CDP's “Climate Change A List,” which recognizes companies for demonstrating leadership on climate risk management in 2019. (Feb 2020)
Google signed a solar-plus-storage deal with NV Energy to source up to 280 MW of renewable energy for its data center in Henderson, Nevada. (Jan 2020)
Ranked #7 on Fortune's “World’s Most Admired Companies” list, which ranks companies based on their performance against nine criteria, including investment value, quality of management, products, social responsibility, ability to attract talent, and more. (Jan 2020)
2019
A group of CEOs from more than 70 companies and union leaders, representing 12.5 million workers, signed a joint statement calling for the United States to stay in the Paris Agreement. CEF member company signatories include Apple, Bank of America, Dow, Ecolab, Google, HP, Ingersoll Rand, Mastercard, Microsoft, NRG Energy, Patagonia, PepsiCo, Tiffany & Co., Unilever, Verizon, and The Walt Disney Company. (Dec 2019)
Ranked #6 on on the Forbes and JUST Capital 2020 JUST 100 list, which ranks U.S. public companies based on their corporate citizenship performance. (Nov 2019)
Google launched an accelerator program to support social impact startups focused on driving progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The company will select up to ten startups from around the world to participate in its six-month accelerator program. (Nov 2019)
Google will invest approximately $150 million into renewable energy projects in “key manufacturing regions” for its products. (Oct 2019)
A coalition of 17 companies — including Google, Mastercard, Microsoft, and Unilever — have joined forces to amplify the important role of business action in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. (Sep 2019)
A group of 19 companies — including Google, Nestlé, and Unilever — have launched “One Planet for Biodiversity,” a WBCSD-led initiative aimed at accelerating action on biodiversity within supply chains and product portfolios. The initiative has three main areas of focus: Scaling up regenerative agriculture practices to protect soil health, developing product portfolios to boost cultivated biodiversity and increase the resilience of the food and agriculture models, and eliminating deforestation. (Sep 2019)
Google announced the largest corporate renewable energy purchase to date, which includes a 1,600 MW package of agreements and 18 new energy deals. The company stated that these deals will boost its global wind and solar energy capacity to 5,500 MW, a more than 40% increase. (Sep 2019)
Ranked #6 among U.S. companies for installed on-site and off-site solar capacity (142.9 MW) in 2018 by “Solar Means Business 2018” (Solar Energy Industries Association, July 2019)
Recognized as one of 120 companies — out of more than 5,500 companies analyzed — on CDP’s Supplier Engagement leaderboard (“Global Supply Chain Report 2019”) for their work with suppliers to reduce emissions and lower environmental risks in the supply chain. (Feb 2019)
Ranked #1 on Carbon Clean 200 list (As You Sow and Corporate Knights), which ranks large publicly listed companies according to total revenue generated from products and services that deliver carbon reductions. (Feb 2019)