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Google pledges water positivity by 2030

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Google pledges water positivity by 2030

The company is working on a plan to cool its data centres using freshwater alternatives

Google is the latest tech firm to announce a pledge for water conservation, announcing that it plans to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030.

"Last September, we announced our third and most ambitious decade of climate action and laid out our plan toward a carbon-free future. Building on this commitment, we are pledging to a water stewardship target to replenish more water than we consume by 2030 and support water security in communities where we operate," Google Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt wrote in a blog post.

Brandt said that the company would replenish 120 per cent of the water it consumes, on average, across the company's data centres and offices.

As part of the pledge, Google has been working on a plan to use freshwater alternatives to cool its data centres. Data centres are large direct consumers of water to cool servers, as well as indirectly for the water needed in non-renewable power generation.

The company will focus on better water management, improved replenishment of local water systems, and sharing tools and technology to prevent water stress in different parts of the world.

Brandt outlined Google's ongoing efforts at utilising storm water and reclaimed wastewater at its facilities wherever possible. For example in Douglas County, Georgia, the firm now uses reclaimed wastewater to keep its servers running.

Meanwhile, at its offices, the company plans to utilise more on-site water sources like collected storm water for activities that don't require potable water, like toilet flushing and landscape irrigation.

Google is working with local ecologists to develop new irrigation techniques in the San Francisco Bay area, and will continue to push forward with projects like these.

The company also plans to invest in community projects in places where it has offices and data centres, to address local watershed challenges. As an example, Brandt highlighted a project that Google is running with the Colorado River Indian Tribes in efforts to cut down the amount of water removed from Lake Mead.

Google consumed about 3.4 billion gallons of water in 2019, according to its recent disclosure.

Recently, the company collaborated with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the United Nations Environment Programme to create the Freshwater Ecosystems Explorer, which enables changes in surface water over time to be tracked on a local and national scale.

Google's latest goal announcement follows Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai saying, last year, that the company would attempt to run all of its offices and data centres entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030.

Ambitious climate targets have recently become a point of positive competition among big tech firms.

Facebook also pledged to be water positive by 2030 last month, meaning that it would return more water to the environment than it consumes for its global operations.

The company says it has invested in projects that help replenish more than 850 million gallons of water a year across six American states, including California, New Mexico and Utah. In 2020, these projects restored about 595 million gallons of water in regions that experience high levels of water stress.

In July, Apple pledged to become carbon neutral throughout its entire business, manufacturing supply chain and product life cycle by 2030. The company claims to already be carbon neutral across its global corporate operations, but the new pledge means that every Apple product sold worldwide would need to have zero carbon impact by 2030.

Amazon has also promised to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy by 2025, and carbon neutral by 2040.

Google pledges water positivity by 2030

The company is working on a plan to cool its data centres using freshwater alternatives

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