Google has announced the elimination of its entire carbon footprint thanks to an investment in "high-quality carbon offsets". In a statement, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company first became carbon-neutral in 2007 and has now compensated for all of the carbon it created up to that point. “We’re pleased to be the first major company to get this done, today,” said Pichai.
He also revealed Google’s pledge to use only carbon-free energy from renewable sources 100 percent of the time by 2030. The commitment is the company’s "biggest sustainability moonshot yet”, according to Pichai. He said the company would do things like pairing wind and solar power sources together as well as increasing its use of battery storage. It’s also working on ways to apply AI to optimise electricity demand and forecasting. The efforts will help create 12,000 jobs by 2025, added the chief executive.
In that regard, Google said it intends to bring 5 GW of new carbon-free energy sources across its key manufacturing regions by 2030 through investment. The move will avoid the amount of emissions equal to taking more than 1 million cars off the road each year and create more than 8,000 clean energy jobs, said the company.
