Kate Brandt leads sustainability across Google’s worldwide operations and products. She notably coordinates with Google’s data centers, real estate, supply chain, and product teams to ensure the company is capitalizing on opportunities to strategically advance sustainability and circular economy. Kate discussed Google’s renewable energy strategy with BEAST.
Your main mission is to make Google more sustainable. How did you first address this challenge when you joined the company in 2015 – a specific roadmap?
Operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning and we have teams across Google that are focused on driving this work. In my role, I work strategically across our environment teams to ensure that we capitalize on opportunities to advance sustainability initiatives that make sense for us as a business. Our Environmental Report reflects on what we’ve achieved in environmental sustainability initiatives company-wide, the lessons we’ve learned along the way, and the opportunities and challenges ahead.
The goal is to use 100% renewable energy and eliminating landfill waste from data centers? What are your main initiatives & KPI towards these goals?
In 2012, we made a commitment to reach 100% renewable energy for our operations. Our use of renewable energy has been growing rapidly. In 2015, we purchased enough renewable electricity to match 44% of our total annual electricity consumption, and in 2016, we increased this percentage to more than 50%. In December 2016 we announced that we will make a huge leap forward this coming year, reaching 100% renewable energy for our global operations—including both our data centers and offices.
In September 2016, we announced an ambitious new commitment to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill for our global data center operations. In 2015, we diverted 84% of waste from our global data center operations away from landfills, and so far in 2016, we’ve hit 86%. The last 10% to 20% of waste diversion is generally the hardest to solve, but it’s also where we can be the most creative about new community partnerships and designing waste out of our systems. Zero Waste to Landfill is only the first step in our journey to weaving circular economy principles into our operations by efficiently managing resources throughout our data centers’ entire lifecycles.
How important is sustainability for tech giants and especially Google – Is it a pure CSR engagement or a plan to turn green into money?
We believe global businesses like Google should lead the way in improving people’s lives while reducing or even eliminating dependence on virgin materials and fossil fuels. And we believe this can be done in a way that makes business sense, providing economic returns alongside societal benefits and, most critically, positive environmental impacts.
Google and its employees have been working on green energy projects for quite some time now (Sunroof, Smart cities, etc). Which projects were the most successful?
In 2015, we launched Project Sunroof, an online tool based on Google Earth’s 3D imagery that helps individual homeowners explore whether they should go solar. In addition, in November 2016 we launched a new data explorer tool to enable solar viability reports to be run at the state, county, city, and zip code levels. And just a few weeks ago the project hit another major milestone, Project Sunroof is now available in all 50 U.S. states.
What are the emerging green energy trends you keep a close eye on?
As a Global Partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we’re working together with other leading companies to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. I’m really interested in the new circular solutions that are emerging such as providing products as a service and focusing on healthy materials that can be endlessly cycled.
What are your thoughts on the revised European Energy Directive which aims at fulfilling at 27% of its energy needs with renewables by 2030? How can Europe, its citizens and companies reach this goal?
In February, we hosted an event at our Brussels office to discuss how businesses like Google are turning to renewable energy and consider how EU energy policies can meet the changing needs of consumers and the marketplace. There are still challenges facing the renewable energy market, many of which are addressed in comprehensive measures on renewables and energy market design recently proposed by the European Commission. Two key topics from my perspective are the need for sound policies to help remove barriers to deployment of renewables and more crossborder cooperation in order to implement Europe-wide initiatives.
Jeremy Rifkin recently published a report for the Luxembourg government linked to the « third industrial revolution » and highlighted the need to switch to renewable energy to build a smart nation. Is it something that Google is monitoring before establishing activities in a new country?
Where possible, we seek renewable energy projects that will operate on the same grids as our data centers. This creates a stronger link between the renewable power we purchase and our data center electricity consumption. Purchasing fixed-price energy on the same grid also enables us to hedge our financial exposure to market price fluctuation.
You also worked for President Barack Obama as the Nation’s first Chief Sustainability Officer. What is going to change with Donald Trump now sitting at the Oval Office and not caring so much about environment and sustainability?
The science of climate change tells us that achieving absolute reductions in annual GHG emissions and sustainable long-term levels of GHGs in the atmosphere is an urgent global imperative. Google is committed to being part of the solution to solving global climate change, both through purchasing renewable energy for our own operations and by helping to create pathways for others to purchase clean energy themselves. We’ve seen strong support from the business community in addressing climate change. For example, over 60% of the global Fortune 100 have GHG or RE goals.