In 2007, we became carbon neutral and in 2017, we became the first company of our size to match 100% of our global, annual electricity consumption with renewable energy. Today, we are the largest annual corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. Now, we’re carving a path forward to decarbonize our electricity supply completely and operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy, everywhere, by 2030.
Our mission is to organize the world’s information. Every Google search you do requires a tiny amount of energy used by the servers in our data centers. With millions of searches per minute and trillions per year, it adds up to a whole lot of energy. Our mission won’t change, but we recognized early on that the energy we use to deliver our services must.
Why is energy important to Google? Reliable electricity supply from our data centers is the fuel that enables us to deliver your search results, emails, YouTube video plays, Cloud Platform services, and much more. And the emissions associated with our electricity consumption have comprised the majority of our carbon footprint.
We’ve worked hard to address our climate impacts. It began in 2007 when we became the first company to go carbon neutral — offsetting as much carbon as our operations generated. In the process, we worked to make Google data centers some of the most energy efficient in the world. In 2017, we became the first company of our size to match 100% of our annual electricity consumption with renewable energy. Today, we are the world’s largest annual corporate purchaser of renewable energy.
But we’re not stopping there. Our 100% renewable match was only an interim solution, and the urgency of the climate challenge demands a bigger and bolder vision. That’s why we’ve announced a first-of-its-kind target to achieve 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy by 2030. But we can’t do it alone. That’s why in 2021, we launched a 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact with Sustainable Energy for All — an international organization working in partnership with the United Nations — to bring together an array of stakeholders on a collective mission to transform global electricity grids to “absolute zero” by advancing 24/7 Carbon-free Energy. We’re carving a path forward to fully decarbonize our electricity supply and operate on carbon-free energy entirely. Clean energy every hour, every day, everywhere. Read more about how we’re taking on this challenge in our white paper.
