Tag Archives: Sustainability

It’s electric! 6 lessons from our largest electric kitchen

We recently opened our all-electric Bay View campus, which also marked the debut of our largest electric kitchen. As our biggest blueprint for fully carbon-free cafes and kitchens yet, Bay View will help advance our commitment to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy across all of our campuses by 2030.

Still, any big change comes with a learning curve. So whether you’re a professional chef or an at-home cook, here are six lessons we’ve learned to help you make the switch to electric:

Electric is way faster. The benefits of electric kitchens go beyond climate impact, starting with speed. The first time I ever cooked on induction (electric) equipment, the biggest surprise was just how incredibly fast it is. In fact, induction boils water twice as fast as traditional gas equipment and is far more efficient — because unlike a flame, electric heat has nowhere to escape. At Bay View, our training programs help Google chefs appreciate and adjust to the new pace of induction. The speed truly opens up whole new ways of cooking.

It’s also safer, simpler and cooler. Compared to traditional gas equipment, induction equipment is safer because there’s very little heat transfer after you remove a vessel, reducing burn risk. Cleanup is a simple wipe-down versus removing stainless steel grates that stay at hundreds of degrees for hours. We also think — and we’re collecting data at Bay View to confirm — that electric kitchens will be more comfortable to work in, because they're potentially cooler (you don't need to leave the heat on high) and quieter (you don’t need the hood fans as often).

The end result is delicious. You can cook world-class food with induction equipment, and many Michelin 3-star restaurants already do. At Bay View, we did a full recipe review to match our same great flavor profiles using induction equipment. Turns out if you have the right brines, marinades, seasoning and technique, you can easily adapt recipes to electric equipment without compromising taste. For example, you can achieve the smoky taste of grilled asparagus on induction simply by giving it time in a smoker or adding smoked salt.

A plate of vegetables is arranged to showcase grill marks.

Great equipment is available and affordable. If you haven’t seen induction cooking equipment in a while, you might still imagine a flimsy old hot plate. Not even close. You can now match every piece of gas equipment with a well-designed (and increasingly affordable) electric equivalent, including skillets, chargrills and woks. At Bay View, we even have electric pizza ovens! At home, a lot of your old equipment will carry over: Common cast iron, stainless steel and non-stick pans are all induction friendly if they have a magnetic base. Just try sticking on a magnet!

You still get that sizzle. Many chefs — both professional and at home — equate a gas flame with “real” cooking. But you don’t need fire to do a great job in the kitchen. For instance, you can sear proteins to enhance flavor on induction the same way you would on gas, and you still get that nice sizzle when you drop food in the pan. At Bay View (and across our cafes), we’ve leaned heavily into electric kitchen training sessions to help inspire our cooks, share best practices and give them the tools to do their best work.

Four chefs gather around a table with two pizza pies in the center. One chef gestures towards the pies while the others review recipes.

There are creative ways to manage the electrical load. Cooking aside, all-electric kitchens do tend to increase a building’s electrical load — but technology and planning can help manage that need. For example, as we’ve found across many of our electric cafes, smart circuit controls can automatically power down certain kitchen equipment if electricity loads get too high. At Bay View, we added spare circuits into our electrical panels for more flexibility, making it easier to accommodate changes in kitchen equipment use over time.

These lessons apply far beyond Bay View, to kitchens big and small, and I hope they inspire others to make the move to electric. What's been most rewarding to find at Bay View, and at our other electric kitchens, is that you don't have to choose between creating something delicious and protecting the planet — you can do both.

A search for bold ideas to drive climate action

Google has been committed to climate action for decades — and during that time, we've learned that we can have the biggest impact on our planet by working together. That’s why we’re launching a $30 million Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation — an open call for ambitious projects from nonprofits and social enterprises that accelerate advances in climate information and action, driven by open data, AI, machine learning and other digital tools.

We’re leading by example at Google by setting a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain, including our consumer hardware products, by 2030. We’re going even further for our data centers and campuses, with a moonshot goal to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy by the end of the decade. Our work to procure clean energy around the world not only helps us decarbonize our own operations, but also greens the local grids where we’re based, benefitting entire regions.

But when it comes to solving a problem as big and urgent as climate change, we get more done when we partner together. So we’re using our technology to make critical climate data available to everyone. Cities are using our Environmental Insights Explorer to better understand their emissions data, solar potential, air quality and tree canopy coverage. Customers are using innovative new tools in Google Cloud like Carbon Footprint, which helps companies accurately measure the gross carbon footprint of their cloud usage. And Google users can make more sustainable choices with information like the carbon footprint of their travel — whether finding flights with lower carbon emissions or choosing fuel-efficient driving directions in Google Maps.

Drive climate action through data

Through theGoogle.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation, we'll build on this work by supporting nonprofits and social enterprises that demonstrate the power of digital technology in climate innovation. Six projects will receive $5 million each in funding, along with in-kind donations of Google’s products and technical expertise through Google.org Fellowships and more. These funds will speed up the collection of data and development of tools that advocates, policymakers, businesses and individuals need to drive positive impact.

Open data and advanced digital tools, including AI and machine learning, can give way to new climate solutions that simply wouldn’t have been possible in the past. These technologies can reveal patterns and insights that were otherwise hidden in a mountain of data. Since 2018, Google.org has supported a wide range of climate innovators that can help us make better planning decisions by modeling future outcomes — including projects that map emissions on a global scale; show people the most effective places to restore ecosystems; and help small businesses understand their carbon footprint, to name a few. Tools like these make the climate information around us more accessible and useful.

This year’s Impact Challenge builds off the success of Google.org’s Impact Challenge on Climate in Europe in 2020, and a $6 million Google.org Sustainability Seed Fund launched earlier this year for the Asia-Pacific region.

Apply now with your bold ideas

Applications for the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation are now open at g.co/climatechallenge. We encourage organizations to apply early, as priority consideration will be given to proposals received by July 29. Selected organizations will be announced on a rolling basis throughout the year, and the application window will remain open until all six projects have been selected.

A search for bold ideas to drive climate action

Google has been committed to climate action for decades — and during that time, we've learned that we can have the biggest impact on our planet by working together. That’s why we’re launching a $30 million Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation — an open call for ambitious projects from nonprofits and social enterprises that accelerate advances in climate information and action, driven by open data, AI, machine learning and other digital tools.

We’re leading by example at Google by setting a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain, including our consumer hardware products, by 2030. We’re going even further for our data centers and campuses, with a moonshot goal to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy by the end of the decade. Our work to procure clean energy around the world not only helps us decarbonize our own operations, but also greens the local grids where we’re based, benefitting entire regions.

But when it comes to solving a problem as big and urgent as climate change, we get more done when we partner together. So we’re using our technology to make critical climate data available to everyone. Cities are using our Environmental Insights Explorer to better understand their emissions data, solar potential, air quality and tree canopy coverage. Customers are using innovative new tools in Google Cloud like Carbon Footprint, which helps companies accurately measure the gross carbon footprint of their cloud usage. And Google users can make more sustainable choices with information like the carbon footprint of their travel — whether finding flights with lower carbon emissions or choosing fuel-efficient driving directions in Google Maps.

Drive climate action through data

Through theGoogle.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation, we'll build on this work by supporting nonprofits and social enterprises that demonstrate the power of digital technology in climate innovation. Six projects will receive $5 million each in funding, along with in-kind donations of Google’s products and technical expertise through Google.org Fellowships and more. These funds will speed up the collection of data and development of tools that advocates, policymakers, businesses and individuals need to drive positive impact.

Open data and advanced digital tools, including AI and machine learning, can give way to new climate solutions that simply wouldn’t have been possible in the past. These technologies can reveal patterns and insights that were otherwise hidden in a mountain of data. Since 2018, Google.org has supported a wide range of climate innovators that can help us make better planning decisions by modeling future outcomes — including projects that map emissions on a global scale; show people the most effective places to restore ecosystems; and help small businesses understand their carbon footprint, to name a few. Tools like these make the climate information around us more accessible and useful.

This year’s Impact Challenge builds off the success of Google.org’s Impact Challenge on Climate in Europe in 2020, and a $6 million Google.org Sustainability Seed Fund launched earlier this year for the Asia-Pacific region.

Apply now with your bold ideas

Applications for the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation are now open at g.co/climatechallenge. We encourage organizations to apply early, as priority consideration will be given to proposals received by July 29. Selected organizations will be announced on a rolling basis throughout the year, and the application window will remain open until all six projects have been selected.

Helping farmers with cloud technology, up close and global

Global warming brings humankind a host of challenges, from forest fires to heavy storms and desertification. Perhaps none matters more than maintaining and increasing food production. Unseasonal heat and cold snaps, new pest infestations and diseases at unexpected times, or extraordinary drought, wildfire and heavy rain, are just some of the challenges the world's food producers face today and in coming years.

Solutions to the challenges posed by climate change will likely require a two-fold approach. First, we should seek to limit the damage, through more sustainable, less carbon-intensive practices, along with carbon capturing and regenerative agriculture. Second, is to create new ways for farmers to gather and apply information about their crops, to better deal with the challenging new realities of growing food.

Paradoxically, this global challenge calls for better focus on local farming conditions. Farmers worldwide know the particulars of their soil, crops, and rainfall. Farmers can benefit from a better read on how unexpected conditions are affecting their specific farms, so they can take the right steps of prevention and remediation for their farms.

This is why Google Cloud is proud and excited to be working with companies like Agrology, a Virginia-based public benefit company who developed a predictive agriculture system that uses machine learning models, IoT sensors and Artificial Intelligence to deliver farmers timely predictions and insights on everything from temperature, rainfall, and soil conditions, to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from nutrient and fertilizer applications.

Agrology was founded in 2019 with a National Science Foundation SBIR Award, and has gone on to service a number of specialty farms across the country from California to Virginia. The present focus is in wine grape growing and specialty crops, where local soil and climate conditions are particularly important and are under extreme threat. Over time, Agrology will roll out their custom data-driven platform and localized approach to many more farms.

"Early on, we met an apple grower who told us that a weather report from 75 miles away wasn't helping him anymore with figuring out how to apply pesticides, there was too much variation," says Adam Koeppel, Agrology's chief executive. "No farmer wants to overspray pesticides. We started thinking about how holistic agriculture is, and how site-specific it should be."

Agrology developed a custom platform with agricultural sensors which continuously gather a range of data above and below ground. This data is combined with other information, including highly local weather forecasts and macro information like baseline satellite data Agrology then makes sense of all the influences and interactions with TensorFlow, our Machine Learning platform. Google Earth helps the team figure out where to lay out their hardware and wireless gateways so that the team has the necessary tools to deliver data from remote locations to the cloud. “That's a big deal”, says Tyler Locke, Agrology's Chief Technology Officer. "Rural agriculture areas tend to be underserved in technology and infrastructure most of the time," he says. "Farmers want technology to help solve their climate change challenges, but they’ve had a hard time getting it."

We're also pleased to play a role in helping Agrology develop its first data models. Kevin Kelly, Agrology's head of Engineering and Machine Learning, taught himself on Google Colab, a dynamic tool for learning and building and sharing Machine Learning solutions. "Like most engineers, I'm a hands-on learner," Kelly says. "With Colab I was able to step through and execute every line of code, change it, and run it again to see how it affected the output."

Using TensorFlow, Kelly adds, was likewise an easy choice, since "studying model architectures and reading blogs, I found that AI researchers, applications engineers and even hobbyists interested in problems like ours – lots of quality data, lots of interactions among seemingly disparate data sets – overwhelmingly used Tensorflow and Keras to develop their models."

Agrology's cutting-edge approach to agriculture is already showing benefits to its clients, and the team is confident its approach and learnings can scale to an even bigger impact.

"We believe we can help maintain and improve yields, but even more," says Adam. "We are finding ways to help farmers with regenerative agriculture, understanding their ability to enhance soil carbon sequestration with the right crops, better water use, or fertilizer applications that avoid releasing excessive greenhouse gasses. The rate at which the climate is changing is driving growers to alter how they farm and do business. There simply aren’t enough farmers and agronomists, and technology can help growers thrive in spite of the growing challenges.”

Bay View is open — the first campus built by Google

After breaking ground in 2017, our Bay View campus officially opened to Googlers and our Charleston East project is in the final phase of construction. This marks the first time we developed one of our own major campuses, and the process gave us the chance to rethink the very idea of an office.

As we celebrate the opening of Bay View — an all-electric, net water positive campus with the largest geothermal installation in North America — here’s a look at how we applied human-centered and sustainable design to the workplace.

Designing an adaptable and healthy workplace

The design of both projects began with a deep dive into what powers Google: our people. We then designed out from there, prioritizing the experience of the people in the building over the exterior form.

After talking to Googlers about what they need from a workplace, we found that they’re happy, productive and creative when they come together in teams, but need spaces that are buffered from sound and movement to get deep-focus work done. So we designed team spaces on the upper level and gathering spaces below to separate focus and collaboration areas — with easy access between both. The upper floor is broken down into smaller neighborhoods separated by courtyards and connected via ramps that gradually rise as you move to the center of the building. This variation in the floor plate gives teams a designated area that changes with their needs, while keeping them close to their larger work community. The result is a building where you can feel connected to people — whether they’re in your larger organization of 2,000 people, your team of 50 people or your immediate working group of 10 people.

The focus on people carried into the careful attention we paid to elements you can see and feel — like materials, daylight, air quality, thermal comfort and acoustics. Here’s how this shows up throughout the campus:

  • The campus incorporates biophilic design principles — like greenery, natural daylight and outdoor views from every desk — to improve the health and wellbeing of those inside. Clerestory windows modulate direct light onto desks with automated window shades that open and close throughout the day.
  • The ventilation system uses 100% outside air — a remarkable achievement when you consider that a typical system only uses around 20-30% of outside air.
  • To create the healthiest environment possible, we vetted thousands of building products and materials to remove toxins. Everything from carpet tiles, paints, piping, plywood and furniture were evaluated using the Living Building Challenge Red List as a framework.
  • Artwork from local artists through Google's Artist In Residence program are a part of the courtyards. The artwork relates to Bay Area ecology and helps with wayfinding in the building.

Finally, we designed a building that can evolve as the way we work changes. With a distributed workforce, an office needs to create harmony between those who are in the office and those who are elsewhere. The flexible nature of the focus and collaboration spaces at Bay View is just one way to accommodate these changes. I truly believe these buildings will keep up as we introduce new spaces to improve hybrid work.

Taking green building to a new scale

To deliver on our commitment to operate every hour of every day on carbon-free energy by 2030, we prioritized renewable energy and maximized the solar potential of our buildings. Bay View’s first-of-its-kind dragonscale solar skin and nearby wind farms will power it on carbon-free energy 90% of the time.

The campus is also on track to be the largest project certified by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) under any of their programs, at any certification level. As part of ILFI’s Living Building Challenge, we’re targeting a Water Petal certification, meaning the site is net-positive with all non-potable water demands being met using the recycled water generated on site. Above-ground ponds that gather rainwater year round and a building wastewater treatment system serve as water sources for cooling towers, flushing toilets and irrigating the landscape. This is a big step toward delivering on our commitment to replenish 120% of the water we consume by 2030.

It doesn’t stop there. Bay View is an example of an all-electric campus and shows what’s possible in regenerative building. Here’s how:

  • The two kitchens that serve seven cafes are equipped with electric equipment rather than gas — a template for fully carbon-free cafes and kitchens.
  • There are 17.3 acres of high-value natural areas — including wet meadows, woodlands and a marsh — that are designed to reestablish native landscapes and rehabilitate Bay Area wetlands. Something that’s especially important as Bay View sits close to the San Francisco Bay.
  • The water retention ponds not only collect water for reuse, but also provide nature restoration, sea level rise protection, and access to the beauty of natural wetlands. New willow groves along the stormwater ponds provide resources for wildlife.
  • The integrated geothermal pile system will help heat and cool the campus. The massive geoexchange field is integrated into the structural system, reducing the amount of water typically used for cooling by 90% — that’s equal to five million gallons of water annually.

Sharing what we’ve learned

Our goal was to push the limits on what an office building could be — not just for the benefit of Googlers, but for the wider community and industry. The Bay View campus can adapt to changing workplace needs so our offices remain vibrant for decades to come. We even wrote a book about these projects that we hope inspires others to build more sustainable places that can benefit people and the planet. You can learn more about our journey at g.co/realestate/bayview.

Take a bite out of these scrappy recipes from Google chefs

There’s been an uptick in home-cooked meals in my life over the past couple of years. (Quarantine cooking, anyone?) As my cooking increased, so did the food scraps. And while using my trusty compost bin has kept most of my unused food from heading to the landfill, I’ve made it a goal to get more scrappy with my cooking to cut back on food waste.

Finding creative ways to reduce food waste is something that teams at Google have been thinking about for years — especially with its recent pledges to cut food waste in half for each Googler and send zero food waste to the landfill by 2025. If they can figure out how to work with suppliers, chefs and Googlers to reduce food waste across offices in 170 cities — surely they could help me do the same in my kitchen. So for Stop Food Waste Day, I chatted with the chef behind Google’s food program, Michael Kann, to hear what Google is doing to cut back on food waste and learn tricks the rest of us can adopt at home — including scrappy recipes straight from Google’s kitchens!

Before you joined Google as the Global Culinary Strategy & Development Lead, your career spanned everything from working as a chef and training chefs to feeding entire student bodies at universities and airline passengers at cruising altitude. How have you thought about food waste in all these roles?

Food waste is a top focus for chefs — whether it’s because of the cost of goods or the environmental impact — and it’s something we take personally. There are techniques that culinary professionals use to reduce food waste no matter how many people they’re cooking for — everything from using as much of the product as possible during prep to coming up with inventive recipes that make the most of ingredients.

At Google, my focus is on infusing these strategies across our cafes and suppliers. My team and I also look at how technology — like Leanpath which helps chefs track what food is going to waste — can help our cafes reduce food waste.

For the home chefs, what tricks and tips can minimize our personal food waste?

Careful planning, prep and organization are the most important steps in reducing waste at home.

Plan out what you are making for the week so you buy only the ingredients you need, and leave days open for leftovers. When it comes to prepping the food, consider how you can do so in a way that maximizes how much of the piece of produce you use. For example, people often cut the entire top off a tomato instead of coring it. If you core it first, you can use the slices for dishes like sandwiches, and the rounded ends can be diced and made into something like salsa.

Get organized with how you store leftovers and new groceries. The first-in, first-out (FIFO) organization system used in most professional kitchens works great at home. First, label or mentally keep track of leftovers and find the expiration date on groceries. Then keep the items that expire first in front, so you’re more likely to grab them and use them.

Now for the tasty part, what are your favorite recipes that feature commonly scrapped foods as ingredients?

Stocks, stocks, and more stocks. Making vegetable stock is a great use of what might otherwise be wasted — like carrots nubs or celery ends. But never use the skins of carrots or onions — it will make your stock bitter.

Broccoli florets are a highly desired vegetable — when I worked at a university it was the most eaten vegetable. But it’s important to plan the menu for the rest of the plant that’s often forgotten: the broccoli stalk. A broccoli soup is a go-to standard, but I also enjoy a great broccoli slaw. This Broccoli Stalk Salad recipe — from Dana Gunders, a national expert and strategic advisor for food waste reduction and author of Waste Free Kitchen Handbook — makes a tasty slaw simply from shredding broccoli stems and carrots. You can also check out her Talks@Google for a kitchen demo and more tips.

On the more creative side, you can pickle things you'd typically toss — like cantaloupe rinds. Just cut them into strips, pickle them, and add them as a fun accouterment to any meal.

Vegetable Stock


Makes 1 gallon

Uses up: Leek tops, celery ends, herb stems, onion bits, ends of zucchini or summer squash

Using vegetable trims in stock is a great way to capture every last bit of goodness from the food you’ve brought into your home. With that said, some things make a stock bitter, sulfuric or just down right bad. So while I recommend using the trim of vegetables, it’s not the same as just throwing everything in the pot.


Key things to think about

  • You can freeze your trimmings to build up enough for a batch of stock. Freezing makes the texture mushy, but traps the nutrients which is what you really want.
  • Avoid peels, especially onions and carrots. The peel is a protective barrier for the plant and is often bitter. Adding these to your stock will intensify the bitterness.
  • Be careful with cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, etc.). Adding some may give a flavor you desire, but too many can be overwhelming. Note that the longer these items cook, the more sulfur taste and smell. This is why boiled cabbage smells so bad the longer you cook it, so brief is key here.
  • If an item is not viable to be eaten, don’t add it to your stock. For example, if an onion has a rotten side, cut out the rot and use the good parts. Watch your refrigerator and use the items before they turn.
  • Wash the dirt off of everything before adding to the pot. We want flavor, not grit.
  • The broth will last 5-7 days refrigerated or can be frozen.

Ingredients

3-4 pounds of mixed vegetables using the guidelines above

1 medium onion

2 carrots (peeled)

2 ribs of celery

3 bay leaves

5 peppercorn (more or less depending on your preference)

Herb stems

1 gallon cold water


Preparation

  • Put everything in a pot
  • Start from cold, then bring to a simmer (to remain at or just below the boiling point, usually forming tiny bubbles with a low, murmuring sound)
  • Simmer for 45 minutes
  • Strain through a sieve
  • Chill strained broth

Broccoli Stalk Salad

Makes 5 servings

Uses up: Broccoli stalks, avocados, carrots

For many of us, the stalks are the evil half of broccoli. We toss them away in favor of their soft-headed florets. But this salad depends on the stalks for extra crunch, so save them! Adding in creamy avocados and carrots makes the dish creamy and sweet. Make a chopped salad or grate all but the avocado for more of a slaw effect.


Ingredients

For the dressing

4 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons honey

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Pepper to taste

For the salad

3 or 4 large broccoli stalks (not the florets!), peeled and cut into thin medallions

½ to 1 avocado, cut into 1/8-inch slices

1 carrot, peeled into long, thin strips

1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced 

1 tablespoon fresh basil or cilantro as garnish (optional)


Preparation

  • In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, vinegar, honey, salt and pepper
  • In a medium bowl, combine salad ingredients
  • Pour the dressing over the vegetables
  • Let sit for 30 minutes before eating, allowing the broccoli to soften
  • Serve at room temperature with a few extra leaves of basil or cilantro scattered on top

Quick Pickled Cantaloupe Rinds

Makes 3 quarts

Uses up: Cantaloupe rinds

Pickling is an age-old process that helps make harder to eat items more consumable. Melon rinds offer a terrific texture when pickled and help make something alluring out of what would otherwise be tossed into the compost.


Key things to think about

  • Wash the melon before trimming.
  • Do not use any part of the rind that has soft spots.
  • Add dried peppers to spice it up, and play with the spices to find the balance you prefer.
  • Use quart mason jars, while this will not be truly “canned” there will be temperature states that need robust strength.
  • Use the wide mouth jars for ease of filling and emptying.
  • The rinds will last for 2-3 weeks.

Ingredients

The rind from 1 small cantaloupe, thinly sliced into 1-inch strips that fit vertically into a mason jar

For the pickling liquid

2 cups white vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

1 thumb ginger, sliced thin

5 each black peppercorns

1 pinch red pepper flakes (more or less based on preference)

5-6 each allspice (whole)


Preparation

  • Tightly pack cantaloupe strips into mason jars
  • Bring pickling liquid to a boil, reduce to a simmer until sugar has dissolved
  • Pour directly into jars with cantaloupe rinds, be sure that the mason jars are at room temperature or even slightly warm (if they are cold they may crack)
  • Tightly cover with lids and allow to cool on the counter for 1 hour
  • Place in refrigerator

Meet 11 startups working to combat climate change

We believe that technology and entrepreneurship can help avert the world’s climate crisis. Startup founders are using tools — from machine learning to mobile platforms to large scale data processing — to accelerate the change to a low-carbon economy. As part ofGoogle’s commitment to address climate change, we’ll continue to invest in the technologists and entrepreneurs who are working to build climate solutions.

So this Earth Day, we’re announcing the second Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change cohort. This ten-week program consists of intensive workshops and expert mentorship designed to help growth-stage, sustainability-focused startups learn technical, product and leadership best practices. Meet the 11 selected startups using technology to better our planet:

  • AmpUpin Cupertino, California: AmpUp is an electric vehicle (EV) software company and network provider that helps drivers, hosts, and fleets to charge stress-free.
  • Carbon Limitin Boca Raton, Florida: Carbon Limit transforms concrete into a CO2 sponge with green cement nanotechnology, turning roads and buildings into permanent CO2 solutions.
  • ChargeNet Stationsin Los Angeles, California: ChargeNet Stations aims to make charging accessible and convenient in all communities, preventing greenhouse gas emissions through use of PV + storage.
  • ChargerHelp!In Los Angeles, California: ChargerHelp! provides on-demand repair of electric vehicle charging stations, while also building out local workforces, removing barriers and creating economic mobility within all communities.
  • CO-Zin Boulder, Colorado: CO-Z accelerates electricity decarbonization and empowers renters, homeowners and businesses with advanced control, automated savings and power failure protection.
  • Community Energy Labsin Portland, Oregon: Community Energy Labs uses artificial intelligence to make smart energy management and decarbonization both accessible and affordable for community building owners.
  • Moment Energyin Vancouver, British Columbia: Moment Energy repurposes retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries to provide clean, affordable and reliable energy storage.
  • Mi Terroin City of Industry, California: Mi Terro is a synthetic biology and advanced material company that creates home compostable, plastic-alternative biomaterials made from plant-based agricultural waste.
  • Nithioin Washington, DC: Nithio is an AI-driven platform for clean energy investment that standardizes credit risk to catalyze capital to address climate change and achieve universal energy access.
  • Re Companyin New York City, New York: Re Company is a reusable packaging subscription service that supplies reuse systems with optimally designed containers and cycles them back into the supply chain at end of life.
  • Understoryin Pacific Grove, California: Understory rapidly monitors and quantifies discrete landscape changes to mitigate the effects of environmental change and deliver actionable information for land management, habitat conservation and climate risk assessment.

When the program kicks off this summer, startups will receive mentoring and technical support tailored to their business through a mix of one-to-one and one-to-many learning sessions, both remotely and in-person, from Google engineers and external experts. Stay tuned on Google for Startups social channels to see their experience unfold over the next three months.

Learn more about Google for Startups Accelerator here, and the latest on Google’s commitment to sustainability here.

Data Commons: Making sustainability data accessible

At Google, we believe that giving everyone easy access to data can be revolutionary — especially when it comes to solving the world’s most pressing problems like climate change.

Take Google Maps for example. Before Google Maps, information — like satellite imagery, maps of roads and information about businesses — was found in different places. Google Maps brings all this helpful information together, so people can use it not only to navigate and explore the world with ease, but also to find solutions to problems facing their communities. We’ve seen people use Google Maps to help do everything from giving communities access to emergency food services to fighting the opioid crisis by highlighting drug drop-off centers.

Despite the critical urgency to combat the effects of climate change, finding data around sustainability is where mapping data was 15 years ago. It’s fragmented across thousands of silos, in a cacophony of schemas, and across a multitude of databases. In 2017, we started the Data Commons project to organize all this data to create standardized, universal access for consumers, journalists, policymakers and researchers. Today, Data Commons is one of the world's largest Knowledge Graphs on sustainability, spanning more than 100 new sources of data about climate, health, food, crops, shelter, emissions and more.

The graph contains nearly 3 billion time series across over 100,000 variables about 2.9 million places. Anyone can access, explore and understand this data using Google Search or our free dashboards and visualization tools. Or they can use our open and free APIs to build new tools based on this data. For enterprise customers, this data is available via Data Commons on the BigQuery Analytics Hub.

Illustration showing connecting dots and arrows that represent the data sources — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Census Bureau, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, World Bank and India Water Resources Information System.

The Data Commons Knowledge Graph is a single knowledge graph that includes more than 100 sources of sustainability data and more.

Connecting the dots on climate data

The effects of climate change are going to worsen food insecurity, health outcomes, economic inequities and other social issues. There is a dire need to create data-driven solutions that can mitigate these effects so we can take collective action. We’re working closely with the broader community — including universities, nonprofits and researchers — to use Data Commons to uncover insights and create solutions. Take a look at some of the work being done:

  • Temperature and health: Professor Arun Majumdar of Stanford University, who was also the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), is using Data Commons to look at the intersection of temperature and human health. When humidity and temperature reach a critical threshold, the human body can no longer regulate its temperature. Arun and his team are identifying which places will reach this critical threshold first. With this information, local governments can take proactive steps to mitigate these effects, like building infrastructure that provides cooling to communities.
  • Water for everyone: Professor Balaraman Ravindran of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras is working with Data Commons to add India-based data on water quality. With this data, communities can get a better understanding of water use, quality, availability and more.
  • Understanding food scarcity challenges: Feeding America is a nationwide network of 200 member food banks serving tens of millions of people in need in the United States. Data from their annual Map the Meal Gap studyis accessible in Feeding America Data Commons so anyone can explore food security and how it intersects with variables like health, climate and education. For Feeding America, this data allows them to quickly identify U.S. locations where food insecurity is most exacerbated by other root causes of disparities and hardship.

Our quest to organize the world’s sustainability information

Climate change is a defining crisis of our time, but together we have the potential to curb its effects. At Google one of the ways we can continue to contribute to solving it is through our mission to organize information and make it easily accessible. Data Commons’ data and code is open source so anyone can use it, and it’s built collaboratively with the global community. Join us in using Data Commons to tackle climate change, and see other progress we’ve made toward the sustainability commitments we made as part of our third decade of climate action.

For Earth Day, an update on our commitments

In 2020, as part of our third decade of climate action, we established a bold set of goals to help build a carbon-free future for everyone. Today on Earth Day, we’re sharing recent progress we’ve made including new investments to help partners address climate change, product updates that allow everyone to make sustainable choices and highlights from our journey to net zero.

Helping our partners address climate change

To provide deeper insights into climate change data — like increased food insecurity, the nexus of health and climate and extreme weather events — we need to enable everyone to create solutions. We’ve continued to provide organizations, policymakers, researchers and more with the data, technology and resources they need to address climate change. Today we announced that Data Commons — our open-source platform built to organize public data and enable standardized, universal access to anyone — is now one of the world's largest knowledge graphs on sustainability. Data Commons has grown to include more than 100 data sources about the climate, health, food, crops, shelter, emissions and more.

Other initiatives we’ve recently announced to help partners include:

  • A Google.org Sustainability Seed Fund in Asia Pacific: This new $6 million fund provides organizations in areas experiencing the brunt of climate change with additional resources to address issues like air quality, water preservation and renewable energy access.
  • Our research shows, 75% of companies think technology will play a key role in their ability to reach sustainability goals: Our recent Google Cloud survey of nearly 1,500 executives across 16 countries found that sustainability tops business priorities, but few business leaders know how to begin or measure impact.
  • Helping build a free carbon calculator for businesses: For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) finding the resources to measure and manage emissions is challenging. We partnered with the Sweden-based company Normative to provide funding and support to develop a free Business Carbon Calculator that is now available through the UN Race to Zero backed SME Climate Hub.

Helping everyone make more sustainable choices

Individuals are also looking for ways to take care of the planet. We’ve been looking at building more ways for our products to give people access to the information and tools needed to make more sustainable choices.

Today, when you go to Google.com, you’ll see timelapse imagery from Google Earth Timelapse and other environmental organizations that illustrates the effects of climate change. This is part of our ongoing efforts to spotlight the impact of climate disasters and help people learn what actions they can take to minimize the effects. Last October, we partnered with the United Nations to make it easier for people to find climate change information. When you search for ‘climate change’ in certain languages, you’ll see information panels and visuals on the causes and effects of climate change and individual actions they can take to live more sustainably. This was already available in English, French and Spanish, and today we expanded to include Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese.

Here are more ways our products are helping people make sustainable choices:

  • Saving energy with Nest: Since Nest launched its first smart thermostat over ten years ago, it has helped people save nearly 100 billion kilowatt-hours of energy — that’s enough energy to light up the entire planet for ten days! Now compatible Nest thermostats can do even more with Nest Renew, a thermostat service announced last year in the U.S. When Nest Renew customers take actions at home that save energy, they earn ‘Leafs’. Once customers reach Leaf milestones, they can vote to direct funds to one of our Energy Impact Program partners, Elevate and GRID Alternatives. These funds have gone toward energy-efficient upgrades to affordable housing in Chicago and the expansion of solar installation programs in California. Nest Renew is currently available in early preview, sign up to join the waitlist.
  • More sustainable transportation options: Over ten years ago, cycling directions came to Google Maps. Today, it’s available in over 30 countries. In 2021 alone we added over 170,000 kilometers of bike lanes and bikeable roads, bringing more options to people looking for sustainable transportation alternatives.

Building a carbon-free future at Google

Lastly, we’ve always believed that to enable others we need to be leaders in the way we address our impact on the planet. In October, we set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain, including our consumer hardware products, by 2030. We aim to reduce the majority of our emissions (versus our 2019 baseline) before 2030, and plan to invest in nature-based and technology-based carbon removal solutions to neutralize our remaining emissions.

We’ve recently shared more on how we’re driving toward net zero:

  • 24/7 carbon-free energy priorities: For emissions associated with powering our data centers and offices, we have an ambitious goal to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. This will require new technology to help with grid decarbonization, like our first-ever battery-based system for backup power at a hyperscale data center that is now operational in Belgium. Additionally, governments will need policies that speed up the transition to clean energy. Last week, we published a roadmap outlining policy priorities ​​that accelerate the decarbonization of electricity grids across the world and our commitment to advancing them.
  • Investing in carbon removals and carbon markets innovation: Beyond our value chain, we’ll build on our leadership in high-impact methane reduction and destruction projects. We’ll also invest in emerging companies developing technology-based and nature-based carbon removal solutions, like our recent $200 million limited partnership in Frontier. And we will help strengthen carbon markets through our Google.org contribution to Gold Standard’s digitization efforts and our $2 million contribution to the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets.

We all have to act now and act together if we’re going to avert the worst effects of climate change. At Google, one of the most powerful things we can do is build technology that allows us, partners and individuals to take meaningful action. We plan to continue this critical work and do what we can to protect the planet.

The city using Google tools for environmental education

Since launching Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) in 2018, my team and I have seen how data can help local governments develop relevant climate plans.

EIE is a free tool designed to help measure emission sources and identify strategies to reduce emissions. In Pune City, India, the local government has used data from EIE to better analyze trip emissions. In Australia, Ironbark Sustainability and Beyond Zero Emissions have developed Snapshot Climate, a community climate tool that incorporates EIE transportation and emissions data — and shares it with local councils and other organizations across the country.

So far, over 320 cities worldwide have made their data available for the public to view through the platform — including West Nusa Tenggara, in Indonesia, the first place in Southeast Asia to adopt EIE.

While we have seen how EIE has helped cities shape their efforts to reduce emissions using data, that’s not the only benefit that the tool offers. Cities like Yokohama in Japan are also using it to educate their citizens.

I wanted to learn more about this initiative — so in the lead-up to Earth Day this week, I sat down with Hiroki Miyajima, the Executive Director of the General Affairs Department in the International Affairs Bureau of the City of Yokohama.

Hiroki-san, it’s wonderful to know that Yokohama City uses Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE). What motivated the city to use this tool?

I was introduced to EIE back in 2020 and found it to be an excellent tool with visual capabilities and accessible simulation features for us to understand our city better. As we already had data on greenhouse gas emissions, I saw the tool as a great way to build awareness around sustainability among our citizens.

Households in Yokohama generate about 25% of our current CO2 emissions. With our mayor having announced a goal of reducing emissions by 50% by 2030, we need to encourage our citizens to change their behavior as we work towards decarbonization. That starts with education, in particular for children and young people: our next generation. We’ve begun incorporating EIE into education programs from junior high school to universities. By exploring EIE, these students can visualize and better understand the impacts of CO2 emissions.

A male student with a mask on, looking at the Environmental Insights Explorer on his computer.

A student using the Environmental Insights Explorer in class.

What impact have you seen since the education programs have rolled out?

I’ve heard several anecdotal stories from teachers. After attending one class, a junior high school student commented that he would make sure to turn off unnecessary electricity if he saw no one using the classroom. Another student said he plans to incorporate energy-saving ideas at home and share what he learns with his parents.

At universities, we see student teams incorporating EIE data into their projects. For instance, one group created a report on promoting the use of electric vehicles and shared their presentation at an international conference held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I’m incredibly encouraged knowing that our younger generation cares about their city and this planet. We can motivate them to take practical action through education, no matter how big or small they are. We look forward to bringing EIE to more institutions.

Why should other cities consider getting on board in using EIE with city planning?

We’ve been collaborating and supporting urban development projects with emerging cities in Southeast Asia. We’ve noticed that many of these cities have not had the chance to calculate the amount of GHG emissions they generate. One reason for this is that calculating emissions can be time-consuming and requires significant funding. However, using EIE, it’s possible to get insightful data efficiently and effectively.

If you’re part of a local government and interested in what EIE can do for your community, fill out this formto get in touch with our team, or visit our website.