Introduction Empowering individuals Working together Operating sustainably Governance and engagement Appendix 2023 Environmental Repo爀琀 It will be especially critical for governments around the di昀昀er widely in maturity. In some cases, this limits our world to enact policies that drive rapid technological ability to successfully in昀氀uence them, and to collect and economic transformations, including the full the data needed to accurately estimate our decarbonization of the global energy system. That’s why Scope 3 emissions. Google advocates for stronger clean energy and climate policies, and pa爀琀ners with many other organizations to Availability of carbon-free energy accelerate clean energy and climate progress. We’ve played instrumental roles in se琀琀ing up advocacy organizations, • There are o昀琀en long lead times between our including the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) in investments and resulting GHG reductions. For the United States, the RE-Source Pla琀昀orm in Europe, and example, with new wind and solar projects, it can the Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC). take years before projects that we contract are constructed and begin to generate clean electricity. To learn more about our public policy and advocacy, • System-level decarbonization is proceeding more No爀琀her O昀昀shore wind farm in Belgium (92 MW for Google) including policy engagement, trade associations, memberships, and pa爀琀nerships, see the Governance slowly than needed in many regions and sectors, and while we aim to accelerate these changes through our and Engagement section. e昀昀o爀琀s and engagement, they aren’t within our control. Our approach Challenges to address Use of carbon removals While we’re excited about our net-zero emissions journey, Our core business involves using data to solve hard There are three main focus areas that make up our • Because the carbon removals sector is in the earliest we recognize that we face many challenges. For example: problems, and our unique strength is combining engineering approach to our net-zero goal: reducing emissions across stage of development, costs are currently high, and skills with an innovative mindset and a global reach. our operations and value chain, advancing carbon-free there are limited volumes of removals available for Growing energy needs  68 energy, and addressing our residual emissions with carbon purchase. removals (see Figure 10). • As we work towards our absolute 50% emissions As we move towards our net-zero goal, the scale of these FIGURE 10 Our net-zero approach reduction target, our business is continuing to evolve challenges will only increase, along with the di昀케culty to meet the needs of a rapidly digitalizing world, and of additional progress. We believe that the urgency of to harness the oppo爀琀unities presented by climate change demands immediate action, and se琀琀ing AI technology. ambitious, near-term targets is a valuable way to focus our e昀昀o爀琀s and drive impo爀琀ant progress across the energy • Our operations and value chain are global and involve a systems and value chains in which we operate. diverse range of industries, which means we must make progress within hard-to-abate sectors and carbon- Carbon reduction Carbon-free energy Carbon removals intensive geographies, such as the Asia Paci昀椀c region. Reduce emissions across our Advance carbon-free energy across Address our residual emissions • We have a large number of di昀昀erent suppliers, both operations and value chain our operations and value chain with carbon removals direct and indirect, each with climate programs that 34