How sustainable is Google Cloud Platform?

Sustainability is arguably the most important issue affecting business today, governments and regulators are increasingly demanding that organizations strive to reduce their environmental impact, and buyers are more environmentally friendly. I’m trying to procure a purchase from clothes.

Cloud operators are under pressure to improve as data centers are believed to account for about 2% of global carbon emissions. Computing We caught up with Pip White, Google’s UK and Ireland cloud managing director, to find out what her company is doing to improve sustainability.

Computing: How is Google working on sustainability? Is there a formal policy and accountable owner?

Pip white: Sustainability goals are and are always central to all areas of Google’s business. Our sustainability goals, led by Global Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt and supervised by Regional Directors, are being promoted at the international level.

In 2007, Google became the first major company to move to carbon neutrality. Today, we are the largest annual corporate buyer of renewable energy, purchasing renewable energy commensurate with electricity consumption, which is equivalent to 100% of the world’s annual electricity consumption in the fourth year following 2021. Is the only major cloud provider to do. Currently, a percentage of Google Cloud waste is being diverted from landfills, achieving a power utilization efficiency (PUE) of 1.10 compared to the global average of 1.58.

Through innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), we are increasing the efficiency of our data centers and introducing data-driven decarbonization and the development of sustainability bonds. We recently announced our most ambitious sustainability goals to date. By 2030, we will be the first major company to operate carbon-free energy everywhere in the day. This is far more difficult than the traditional approach of matching global annual energy usage with renewables, but we are working to achieve this by 2030.

CTG: Specifically, what did GCP do to make it a more sustainable product?

PW: Our data center operates on a super-efficient infrastructure and can support exponential internet demand. In addition, it is twice as energy efficient as the average enterprise data center.

Through AI and ML workload planning and recent development of applications, Google engineers have been able to significantly reduce data center energy usage and make what we use much more sustainable. It was.

By applying smart AI and ML to the cooling system, we were able to reduce the energy used to cool the data center by 30%. In terms of energy consumption required, our engineers have designed this type of system to shift the timing of non-urgent customer computational tasks to the timing of the most abundant carbon-free power supplies. Optimize your hourly guidelines to raise your level. Of low carbon energy consumed. The system also has the ability to shift workloads between data centers, depending on when and where carbon-free energy is most abundant.

CTG: How important is sustainability to GCP customers? Is that what many people ask before the sale?

PW: Sustainability is a top priority for almost every company today, and of course. Seventy-five percent of the world’s IT leaders say sustainability is important when choosing a cloud provider, 51% say it’s a key consideration, and another 24% say it’s a must. Stated.

Reducing Google’s own emissions is essential, but collaboration with our customers is central to our goal of creating a completely carbon-free, energy-powered world.

Last year, we worked with more than 50 customers around the world to assess the carbon impact of IT assets and accelerate net carbon reductions from thousands of kilograms of CO2 to thousands of kilotons. Measure your company’s progress through the newly developed Carbon Free Energy Percentage (CFE%) and share hourly CFE% by region to enable customers to make more environmentally friendly IT decisions. .. Customers can use this information to choose to run their workloads in areas with high CFE% and decarbonize their IT footprint. Salesforce is just one of our customers who leverages CFE% data to decarbonize their services. According to the company’s Sustainability Lead, Salesforce sees the environment as a key stakeholder in its business, with CFE% empowering all customers to prioritize where to maximize carbon-free energy and a carbon-neutral cloud for all customers. We support you so that we can provide it every day.

CTG: How are you planning to promote or change GCP sustainability next year or so?

PW: Google is constantly looking for strategies to operate more sustainably and opportunities to work with customers on their own sustainability goals. Since developing technology to reduce the amount of energy used to cool our data centers, we are now enabling our customers to do the same. This year, the world’s largest industrial enterprises, building management software providers, and data center operators will have access to the same AI technology to help them move to leaner operations.

In addition, we are actively working with our partners to leverage the vast amount of data stored in our systems to promote sustainable business practices. The partnership between Google Cloud and consumer goods brand Unilever is just one example. Announced last September, the partnership combines the power of cloud computing, satellite imagery and AI to create a more complete picture of the ecosystem that intersects Uniriver’s supply chain. Unilever’s existing work with other technology partners to raise sustainable sourcing standards and achieve a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023 by providing a more comprehensive view of these environments. I would like to support you directly.

CTG: Are there any specific certifications that GCP meets or aims to achieve in terms of sustainability?

PW: Google Cloud is net carbon neutral today. We also matched 100% of electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases on an annual and global basis. This is often referred to in the market as the 100% renewable energy target. As part of our goal of operating carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by 2030, we have set a number of ambitious goals for both our company and our partners. We want to work with governments, organizations and policy makers to bring system-level change, and last year we invested about $ 6 billion in sustainability bonds for clean energy, infrastructure and transportation. .. In addition, to facilitate the development of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, the company plans to bring a total of 5 gigawatts online over the next decade, based on previous investments.

CTG: Which issues do you want your customers to understand about GCP and sustainability?

PW: Cloud technology offers a great opportunity to accelerate meaningful and positive environmental change. From reducing digital application and infrastructure emissions to smarter material sourcing and tracing methods, the technologies available on Google Cloud help organizations reach their unique sustainability goals. Public cloud technology is leading efforts to streamline and decarbonize business processes, but sustainability within the technology is not yet over. As we enter the most ambitious decade to date, collaborative innovation will be at the forefront of our commitment to sustainability on Google Cloud. We strive to empower all our partners, whether companies, governments or individuals, to achieve a more sustainable tomorrow.

Just a while ago Computing We talked to Microsoft, who described sustainability as a “team sport.”