
Google’s Environmental Report - chrisseldo
https://environment.google/
======
notatoad
there's some pretty shady reporting on the summary page:
[https://environment.google/projects/environmental-
report-201...](https://environment.google/projects/environmental-report-2016/)

9.2M sqft LEED certified - they display percentages for most stats, but only
an absolute for this one? going to make me dig to find their total office
square footage to find out what this means?

Then the next stat, 31% LEED Platinum. oh good, a percentage. except it's not,
it's a _percentage of their LEED certified buildings_.

or "100% landfill diversion, in 6 of our data centres". surely google has more
than 6 data centres, but let's only look at the environmental stats of the
ones that are doing a good job. [The stat is 84% across all their
datacentres.]

"100% renewable energy". sounds good, except oh no, it's "we will achieve".
What's the percentage right now? [it was 44% in 2015, the last year they
report.]

[edit - skimmed the report, added in some numbers to my comment] The report
itself appears to be mostly the same marketing fluff, until you get down to
the "environmental data" appendix on page 66, which actually looks like a
pretty solid report of their environmental footprint. And it looks like
they're doing a decent job, so i'm not sure why the real numbers are buried so
deeply.

~~~
mabbo
More importantly, LEED is bullshit.

LEED is a private entity that you pay to get LEED certification based on your
_planned_ designs. Once you have certification, you could build literally
anything else. If you buy a LEED certified building, you could convert it to
be heated and powered by burning tires and endangered animals- still LEED
Certified.

There is no decertification process, because that would mean spending money to
reduce the number of buildings with the very-public name on it. Why would LEED
ever want that?

~~~
ghostly_s
Oh my goodness. I work in the architecture industry at a firm that does a
great number of LEED projects, and there is not a shred of truth in this
claim.

~~~
notatoad
LEED's own website seems to say it's true: [http://www.usgbc.org/help/will-my-
project-be-decertified-if-...](http://www.usgbc.org/help/will-my-project-be-
decertified-if-it-performs-worse-projected-my-certification-level)

~~~
ghostly_s
Yes, it's true there's no LEED "decertification" process, but everything else
the parent comment claimed or implied is false, including the implication here
that "LEED decertificaiton" is a thing that's needed due to any sort of
prevalent LEED fraud.

~~~
fenwick67
Let's fact check the post:

LEED is a private entity... true

that you pay to get LEED certification... true

based on your planned designs... true

Once you have certification, you could build literally anything else... true

If you buy a LEED certified building, you could convert it to be heated and
powered by burning tires and endangered animals- still LEED Certified...
speculative

There is no decertification process,... true

because that would mean spending money to reduce the number of buildings with
the very-public name on it.... speculative

~~~
mabbo
The parent is right to call me out, I'm a bit of a dickhead when I get onto
topics like this. And you're also right in that some of my claims are
speculative.

I don't think anyone has tried the 'burning tires and endangered animals' move
quite yet. I should give it a try!

~~~
notatoad
I look forward to your follow-up post.

------
bbernard
Big respect for Google!

Creating that site is a really cool move, and it will encourage other people
to do the same.

I especially like the fact that they'll mount sensors for air quality on
Street View cars. And the fact that they're using almost 100% renewable
energy.

This is what I call leading by example.

~~~
coldpie
> I especially like the fact that they'll mount sensors for air quality on
> Street View cars

There was a really good article on Ars about using this to detect natural gas
leaks just a couple weeks ago:

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/natural-gas-is-
leaki...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/natural-gas-is-leaking-from-
city-pipes-but-spotting-leaks-is-getting-easier/)

------
strainer
There is a great need to hurry up with enthusing and glamorising the most
sustainable human consumables and activities and interests, by the truly
effective means of our Age (mass commercial and public advertising) This also
means stigmatising and depreciating many kinds of commerce and spending which
have to date been marketed and defended as rightful livelihoods.

It is past time to be just tending our own very fine gardens. We need to make
it difficult for each other to pollute and mis-consume, like we did with
smoking.

~~~
theDoug
I agree. As soon as someone shares a number, such as with diversity, it now
opens up the questions of why others yet do not or will not.

------
calichoochoo
The office component is such b.s. that it throws the rest of the report into
doubt. While solar panels and shuttles are small gestures in the right
direction, Google continues to make the wrong large decisions by putting their
offices in the middle of nowhere, miles from any real place, surrounded by
acres of parking. The sustainable thing would be to put their buildings in
cities and adjacent to mass transit so employees can walk and ride to work
from their nearby homes.

~~~
rrdharan
Disclaimer: I work at Google but the following comments are just based on
personal observation and public information.

I think you're talking about the Mountain View campus and I agree it seems
superficially to be an example of what you're talking about... I imagine with
the benefit of hindsight and with modern (post 2000s :) sensibilities in mind
both Google and Facebook would have tilted more heavily towards building up
their SF presences back when that would have still been plausible/affordable.

However the parking restrictions are actually enforced by municipal
regulation; I believe Google and many other companies (including my previous
employer, VMware) would prefer to build campuses with much less parking but
they are required to have a certain ratio of parking spaces to employees due
to these antiquated regulations.

Meanwhile the other Google campuses are in fact located in large cities,
though I believe transit access (Seattle?) is still an issue. One of the main
reasons I choose to live in New York and work at the New York office is
because I am a huge fan of the set up here where the office is centrally
located and highly transit accessible.

~~~
ForrestN
I think it's more that the fact of having a giant, expensive separate campus
is itself not a particularly progressive situation, regulations aside. Just a
few common sense examples of the problems with this approach: massive, custom-
built complexes are very hard to re-use if and when search advertising revenue
declines; tax revenues go to random places that don't need them, instead of
cities that could use rich companies headquartered there to better support
public services; many employees still have to do business in big cities, so
there is a massive amount of unnecessary travel to and from cities and
international airports; etc. The issue is "campuses" as much as it has
anything specific to do with parking regulations, which I assume all of these
companies knew about when they made the decision to build the campuses.

~~~
rrdharan
Yep, I agree with you to an extent but I was also using "campuses" and
"offices" interchangeably.

The Google New York offices follow exactly the model that you are suggesting.

~~~
ForrestN
Agreed! Here's hoping they cancel the Mountainview expansion and focus on
replicating the New York approach.

~~~
cromwellian
Where would you locate an office for 20,000 people in Northern CA in a city?
SF? You'd make housing in the city much worse, and you'd be hard pressed to
find the land or permits for it.

~~~
calichoochoo
Salesforce somehow manages to house 7000 of their employees in San Francisco,
and Wells Fargo somehow seats 8000 of theirs. Nobody is suggesting that Google
should move all of their people to SF, but I am suggesting they should
consolidate into larger offices in the centers of principal cities: San
Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.

~~~
kmicklas
And most importantly, outside the Bay Area.

------
sremani
How does a data center run fully renewable, do they have huge battery
installations or is it one of those "credits" things where, their consumption
is compensated by production equal amount of solar and wind contracts they
signed up to?

~~~
ceejayoz
[https://environment.google/projects/announcement-100/](https://environment.google/projects/announcement-100/)

> We were one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term
> contracts to buy renewable energy directly; we signed our first agreement to
> purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010.
> Today, we are the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with
> commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar
> energy.

~~~
strictnein
Still don't get how that works. A 114MW wind farm almost never produces 114MW.
In fact, it's output is fairly unpredictable, and can swing from 10MW to 90MW
and back to 20MW over the course of 30-40 minutes.

When a company that requires high levels of constant power "buys" that power,
what are they buying, exactly? Because they're still just as reliant on
nuclear/coal/natural gas as they were before they bought that power. Are they
just signing up to pay a higher rate for those 114MW of power they get from
the grid?

~~~
twohlix_
They are guaranteeing for that producer their power is purchased at
x$/whatever for 20 years. Massively lowers the risk profile for the wind farm,
and lets them focus on potentially expanding. Google is basically acting as a
subsidizer of renewable energy here. So while yes they rely on the grid,
they're a market force for increasing the percent of the power produced on the
grid to be renewable.

Every MW produced by the renewable is a MW not needed to be produced by
natural gas/coal

~~~
strictnein
I guess that makes more sense. It's more an act of corporate goodwill on their
part, helping to build a certain level of renewable energy.

~~~
tedsanders
Partly. But it's also an act of risk hedging. By locking in prices for 20
years, the buyer is insulated from rising prices and the generator is
insulated from falling prices.

------
davidsawyer
The contrast of the text of those articles is absolutely abysmal.

------
chasingtheflow
Does the fact that they released this on WWDC day, a high traffic tech news
day, suggest there may be something in here that they're hoping gets
overlooked?

~~~
CobrastanJorji
They are linking to it directly from the www.google.com homepage, complete
with a colorful custom Google animation. If they're trying to bury this
report, they're doing a very bad job of it.

------
ksullivan
Hey everyone!

I'm a developer at Aclima. We are working with Google on the mobile sensing
tech talked about here:
[https://environment.google/projects/airview/](https://environment.google/projects/airview/)

Honestly I'm really excited about it, but of course I'm just a tiny bit biased
:)

If anyone has any questions I would love to do the best I can to answer them.
Cheers!

------
artursapek
Is Google the only large company to own its own TLD?

~~~
tomjakubowski
No, see [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_d...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains) for many more examples (.amex, .bmw,
.canon, ...)

Google is certainly making more public of use their TLD than many of those
other brands, though.

------
hellbanner
How did Google get a TLD? I read
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/26/google_turns_on_goo...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/26/google_turns_on_google_internet_extension/)
Can anyone do this with enough $?

~~~
niklasrde
Yeah, pretty much. There was an application process to go through as well, but
if it's your trademark it's pretty much yours. (Though who knows when the next
round of application opens..)

I believe we own our TLD as well, but don't use it, yet - it's for brand
protection. If you have a look at my comment history and deduce my employer,
you might understand why with our name...

~~~
linkregister
I wonder why you wanted interested commenters to look through your history.
You thought you would be viewed as shilling for BBC?

------
awqrre
When they talk about refurbished components, are they really refurbished or
just "overstock" sold as refurbished? It just seems odd that there would be
that many refurbished components... or maybe they don't do that many server
upgrades and just replace the whole things.

------
jordigh
There's something funny about them reporting market-based emissions in the
appendix. Mostly, that they're reporting them all the way back to 2011 when
this was only approved by 2015. It's not really a big deal, but it's a bit
unusual.

You can read a bit about the market-based scope 2 method here:

[http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/01/scope-2-changing-way-
compani...](http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/01/scope-2-changing-way-companies-
think-about-electricity-emissions)

Let me explain a bit: market-based emissions are electricity power grid
emissions computed the market-based method. The method measures your emissions
differently depending on whether or not you bought a green instrument. Roughly
speaking, green instruments are money you pay the power company that they will
invest into green sources of energy, like wind and solar.

Under the market-based method, if you bought a green instrument, you can then
report lower emissions, as if all of your electricity only came from the green
energy you purchased. Conversely, if an instrument was available for purchase
but you didn't buy one, your emissions will look like they all came from non-
green sources of energy, like coal (these are called residual emissions). Of
course, this is all a bit of an accounting lie: when you use the power grid,
you can't tell the power company to not send you electricity from their coal
power plant. Therefore, you also have to report your location-based emissions,
which is the "normal" reporting that has been used in all previous years and
is still being used. Roughly speaking, the location-based method is, take the
total emissions of the entire power grid you're using, and multiply that by
your fractional of the power usage of the grid over all other customers. Your
emissions are then computed as your proportion of all green and non-green
emissions that the entire power grid produces.

The market-based method is supposed to incentivise companies to buy green
instruments because they can then report lower emissions under one method. The
purchase of green instruments in turn is supposed to incentivise power
companies to invest in green energy. The whole thing, however, is kind of
based on an accounting "trick". This is why the greenhouse gas analysts at my
job aren't huge fans of the market-based method.

WRI was pressured by many industry leaders to adopt the market-based method as
part of the reporting protocol. If Google is reporting market-based emissions
all the way back to 2011, way before it was approved last year, I wouldn't be
surprised if they were one of the companies that lobbied WRI to include the
market-based method. They are also mentioned as a motivating example in that
link above.

------
weka
Google has their own TLD? Not sure how I feel about that. Then again, we do
have a myriad of others.

~~~
CydeWeys
I'm the lead engineer of the Google Registry, which runs .google as well as
the other dozens of TLDs that we run. Feel free to ask any questions. Our site
is [https://www.registry.google/](https://www.registry.google/) and our code
is released as Free/Open Source Software at
[https://nomulus.foo](https://nomulus.foo) (another one of our TLDs).

~~~
kuschku
So, why?

Companies shouldn't have ownership of TLDs, so why did you register so many
TLDs that have nothing to do with Google, and which you don't allow to be used
freely? Profits?

This is disgusting. The fact that corporations can control TLDs in the first
place is disgusting, and I'd by far prefer if every TLD would have to be
controlled by cooperatives (like denic) or other kinds of nonprofits,
completely independent of everything else.

Especially in the current situation, where Google is cybersquatting on entire
TLDs, just because they can. And while domains are frequently removed for
squatting, nothing’s done with TLDs. Open the TLD for everyone, and use it, or
get rid of it. But the current situation is disgusting. (I fundamentally
disagree with companies controlling any kind of infrastructure)

~~~
CydeWeys
That's the way it's been since the earliest days of the World Wide Web. You
can read the history of .com here
[https://icannwiki.org/.com](https://icannwiki.org/.com) , but the TL;DR is
that it was run by a private company as early as 1991, then acquired by
Network Solutions in 1993, which was acquired by Verisign in 2000 who still
run it to this day. .net has a similar history. I don't see any a priori
reason why profit-driven companies should be excluded, and as you point out,
there are plenty of non-profit registry operators to choose from (including
Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that runs .org), if you care strongly
about that.

denic is a ccTLD operator, whereas what we're discussing here are all gTLDs.

~~~
kuschku
My issue is that there’s corporations squatting on TLDs, which no normal
person can afford.

Not only does this increase the advantages an established corporation can have
over individuals or startups, it also ends up with Google literally
domainsquatting entire TLDs just because they can.

And there’s no registrar above them that could simply revoke their domains for
squatting.

And de is as much a ccTLD as .io – it’s not really the actual case anymore. DE
is one of the largest domains overall, even counting gTLDs.

And we could simply solve this – use the power of democracy (aka, governments)
to force TLD ownership to be entirely non-profit.

I don’t want to see large corporations buy massive amounts of TLDs (as google
has done) and then sit on them. In addition to the antitrust issues that can
appear with this.

How should a startup ever be able to compete in a reasonable timeframe with
Google if we allow these corporations to grow ever further, and gain ever more
power?

~~~
CydeWeys
I can't really comment on the rest of it, for obvious reasons, but this part
is not accurate:

> And de is as much a ccTLD as .io – it’s not really the actual case anymore.

.de is clearly still the ccTLD for Germany. It's not at all like the situation
of .io, which is run by a British company as, effectively, a two-letter
generic TLD that has nothing to do with the actual Indian Ocean territories.
.de clearly has a lot to do with Germany, including being widely used there
(but not anywhere else), and also being run by denic, a German company
headquartered in Frankfurt. I was just in Frankfurt last week talking with a
bunch of denic people, actually. They absolutely do consider it a country code
TLD, proudly and unapologetically.

------
benatkin
Alphabet can move anything heavily polluting outside of Google and do their
environmental press from Google.

~~~
notatoad
Look at the appendix, they report three different "scopes" for emissions.
yeah, they could move anything polluting to somewhere else in the alphabet
umbrella, but it's still in-scope for reporting.

"Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from sources we own or control, such
as company vehicles or generators at Google’s offices and data centers. Scope
2 emissions are indirect emissions from the production of electricity we
purchase to run our operations. The location-based category reflects the
average carbon intensity of the grids where our operations are located and
thus where our energy consumption occurs. The market-based category
incorporates our procurement choices, i.e., our renewable energy purchases via
contractual mechanisms like PPAs. Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions
from other sources in our value chain, such as business travel or our
suppliers"

~~~
jordigh
By the way, the scopes are all part of the standard WRI greenhouse gas
protocol for reporting emissions. You might be interested in how the market-
based method works.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14489412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14489412)

------
zepto
Finally catching up with Apple.

~~~
DannyBee
Besides the other comment, also worth staring at :
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2016/01/08/the-
trut...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2016/01/08/the-truth-about-
apples-100-renewable-energy-usage/#4df63c2f189c)

~~~
IBM
Nothing in this silly post doesn't also apply to Google. Google datacenters
are connected to the grid as well. It's not feasible for Apple stores in
cities and shopping malls to be connected to solar or wind farms. It's still
all renewable energy.

~~~
cromwellian
Google's datacenters are large, but they don't consume the resources needed to
produce 1 billion smart phones.

~~~
zepto
Android does. Google can't claim credit for Android when it likes and disown
it when there are unpleasant side effects.

