Introduction Empowering individuals Working together Operating sustainably Governance and engagement Appendix 2023 Environmental Repo爀琀 data centers is di昀케cult. Despite this, we remain focused on Executive le琀琀ers developing new ways to make AI computing more e昀케cient By making information accessible and while leveraging the oppo爀琀unities that AI presents to have a positive environmental impact. accelerating innovation, we can help A le琀琀er from our Senior Vice President create a more sustainable future. Beyond our own footprint, Google’s founding mission— of Learning and Sustainability “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”—can play a very impo爀琀ant role in more extreme weather (昀氀ood forecasting, for instance), accelerating progress in climate information and action. I was introduced to the problem of climate change in the late optimizing systems from tra昀케c lights to car routes, and A sustainable future will be built upon billions of decisions 1980s through a prescient class I took as an undergraduate. mitigating climate change in new ways, for example. made by governments, organizations, and individuals, The models were less sophisticated and more unce爀琀ain than which will need to be grounded in good information. they are today, but the implications were already worrying. In our 2023 Environmental Repo爀琀, we’re highlighting how Increasingly, we see through Google Trends that more Thi爀琀y years later much has changed. The threat is now these themes of information and innovation run through and more people are looking for ways to live sustainably. more immediate, but the world is also taking action—from much of our work: I believe that we have many strengths and capabilities in governmental policy and technology innovation to actions providing quality information that people are seeking to by individuals and organizations—driven by a broader For information, we’ll feature Google Trends make decisions that’ll drive positive action for our planet. awareness of the danger. insights alongside key initiatives to show how our work is informed by societal trends Helpful information can be critical in both e昀昀o爀琀s to reduce I worked on Search for 20 years, leading the product for and expectations. emissions as well as adapt to extreme climate events like many of those, and learned a lot about the unique impact And for innovation, we’ll call out the many 昀氀oods, wild昀椀res, and heat waves. But this information o昀琀en Google can have on the world. I’ve always been proud places where AI is helping to break down lives in silos and is hard to access. Making the information of Google’s leadership in pushing the boundaries of barriers and advance our work. accessible and useful can be a tough technical challenge. sustainability in our data centers, including achieving carbon Our products like Environmental Insights Explorer, Ea爀琀h neutrality in 2007 (at the time, such accomplishments were Over my tenure at Google, I’ve seen how we’ve been Engine, and Data Commons are key solutions to suppo爀琀 uncommon). Going fu爀琀her, we’ve matched 100% of our working to integrate sustainability into our work. This the decisions that cities and organizations will have to global electricity use with renewable energy purchases for transition is going to be challenging—both for us and for make. Information can also have a signi昀椀cant impact the last six years—a goal that seemed almost crazy when the world at large—and there’s no playbook for making on the decisions of individuals—pa爀琀icularly in the areas we set it in 2012. it happen. But we see our e昀昀o爀琀s as pa爀琀 of a bigger of home energy and transpo爀琀ation. Our products like picture, se琀琀ing our goals to help scale global solutions, Today our ambitions have evolved—we now have a bold Maps, Search, and Nest reach billions of users around the and I’m optimistic that we can, through our e昀昀o爀琀s in both goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our world, and we’re building many features to respond to the information and innovation, play a helpful role in building a operations and value chain, and as pa爀琀 of that goal, to demand for that information in our products. more sustainable and resilient future. run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where we Given the scale of the problem, innovation will also be operate. The path to get to these goals is di昀케cult, and we’re commi琀琀ed to working through the challenges we face with key to ge琀琀ing us to a be琀琀er future. In order to push the Benedict Gomes frontiers of innovation, Google has long had a world-class the ultimate aim of driving larger systems change to create Benedict Gomes research organization that’s been at the forefront of AI and a more sustainable future. Fu爀琀her, predicting the future SVP, Learning & Sustainability machine learning. These solutions can help in predicting growth of energy use and emissions from AI compute in our Google 4