Google

By Richard Diamond

Corporate Goals & Initiatives

Google describes its commitment to sustainability and healthy environments as follows:

"Our focus on creating healthy environments doesn’t stop with the building materials in our offices. We make every effort to address the factors that impact people’s experience of indoor environments, such as thermal comfort, daylight and access to views. We also provide aggressive performance benchmarks for energy and water consumption. We use sophisticated building control technologies to ensure systems are on only when we need them. We’ve installed solar electric and solar hot water panels on our roofs, treated water on-site for reuse, and used recycled municipal wastewater for other applications (e.g. toilet flushing and landscape watering). We have the aspirational goal of diverting 99% of construction waste from our projects."

Google has also pursued energy and environmental workplace standards, including ISO 140001 (Environmental Management), OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems) and ISO 50001 (Energy Management Certification) certifications.

Google is taking a three-pronged approach to reach its zero-carbon goal. First, it is making its server farms, office buildings, and commuting habits more energy efficient. Then the company is investing heavily — $915 million to date — in solar and wind producers to make clean energy more available. And finally it is buying enough carbon offsets to make the company carbon neutral — at least on paper — until it can meet its overall goal. In March, 2015, Google announced that it was investing $300 million in a fund created by Solar City. Some economists believe the deal was structured to allow Google to get the tax equity (Wolfram 2015). According to the Washington Post, Google has now committed more than $1.8 billion to renewable energy projects, including wind and solar farms on three continents. The Solar City deal, which may have a return as high as 8 percent, is a sign that technology companies can take advantage of investment formats once reserved only for institutional investors. Google emphasizes that this move is driven in no small part by the value of locking in known energy prices into the distant future, as distinct from reliance on highly volatile fossil fuel prices (Google 2014).

Google has pursued sustainability across its portfolio worldwide.

• Utilizing waste heat from data centers: At some of its data centers, Google re-uses waste heat from the servers to provide heat to the office building. Air from the hot aisles in the data center, which would normally be exhausted outside, is instead drawn over an air-to-air heat exchanger, where it is used to heat up incoming fresh air for the office area. In this way, no additional source of heat, such as a natural gas boiler, is required to heat the office building (Google 2014).

• Reducing energy use in New York City: They are participating in the Mayor’s Carbon Challenge and reduced the carbon footprint of the NYC office by more than 15% in the first year of the challenge. More projects are on the way to further reduce energy usage, including chiller upgrades, lighting controls and wall insulation. They are also currently installing what will be some of the highest thermal-performing windows in the world.

• Efficient heating and cooling In Zurich, Switzerland: A chilled beam heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) system uses significantly less energy to regulate building temperature while also occupying less space than conventional equipment.

• LEED certification of buildings globally: Google has over 4 million square feet of LEED certified buildings, 1.2 million of which are rated Platinum (highest level possible) and 2.6 million Gold, with more in the works. They also have one Green Star certification (Australia’s LEED equivalent). The office in Dublin achieved Ireland’s first Platinum certification and the Buenos Aires office achieved the first LEED certification in Argentina.

• Energy benchmarking: Google has set goals and benchmarks building performance using industry frameworks such as the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program and the Living Building Challenge.

• Water recycling in Hyderabad, Sydney and New York: In Hyderabad, roughly 380,000 gallons of wastewater are treated and reused annually in non-potable systems (e.g. flushing toilets and landscaping). Similarly, the Sydney office (recently Green Star certified by the Green Building Council of Australia) treats and recycles waste water for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation. The New York office installed a system to capture and use groundwater that was being pumped into the sewer system since the building opened in 1932, replacing 20% to 60% of potable cooling-tower water.

• Rainwater harvesting system in Dublin, Ireland: A rainwater harvesting unit collects, filters, and treats rainwater to be used for toilet flushing for the bathrooms in the building. The system is estimated to gather 157,350 gallons annually (25% of the water demand).

• Urban agriculture across offices: Several Google offices, including New York, Pittsburgh and Mountain View, have taken up urban agriculture. Several have small gardens that supply fresh greens to the onsite cafes. Some even allow Googlers to pick their salad straight from the plant to reinforce where the food comes from. New York and Pittsburgh also host beehives that help pollinate the gardens and provide honey for the cafes, not to mention fighting the disappearance of honeybees by maintaining strong, managed hives.

In February 2015, Google unveiled plans for a ground-breaking, 3.4 million-square-foot campus conceived by architecture firms BIG and Heatherwick Studio (Figure 1).

“Tech really hasn’t adopted a particular language for buildings,” said David Radcliffe, Google’s vice-president of real estate development in a video proposal. “I mean, we’ve just found old buildings, and we’ve moved into them, and made do best we could.”

Envisioned as both a neighborhood and as a wildlife habitat, the proposed master plan for the new Google campus on the fringes of Mountain View, California, features four clusters of buildings draped in a thin, glass membrane. These buildings, "rather than being made from concrete, will be built from lightweight materials in order to be quickly reconfigured to keep pace with Google’s ever-expanding forays into fields such as automotive technology and biotechnology. Radcliffe compared the design to Lincoln Logs" (Wainwright, 2015).

Figure 1. Artist rendering of the new Google Campus showing the glass canopy and landscaping (Source: Fixsen, 2015)

Flagship Project: Googleplex (Headquarters)

• Project type: retrofit

• Address: 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 US [Map]

• Number of buildings: 8+ on main campus

• Floor area: 3,100,000

• Occupants: n/a

• Site: 26 acres

• Walk Score: 38/100*

• Summary Table

The 3.1-million-square-foot Googleplex facility (Figure 2) implemented a variety of measures spanning energy efficiency, renewable energy, water efficiency, and transportation alternatives for employees (Google 2015; Wikipedia 2015).

Figure 2. Aerial view of the "Googleplex" Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, CA,

showing the photovoltaic panels on the roofs

Their 1.9 MW solar installation supplies approximately 30% of peak energy consumption on the buildings it covers, and they’ve implemented a building management system that monitors and controls campus-wide energy use.When the current California drought started, Google had already been participating with the California Best Building Challenge, targeting 20% reductions on already high-performing buildings in energy, water and waste. They undertook a huge effort to convert their landscape irrigation to recycled municipal water (purple pipe), saving an estimated 24 million gallons of potable water for the year. They’ve also been replacing water-intensive turf with drought-friendly native landscaping all over campus, as well as replacing shower heads and faucets in favor of low-flow ones. In light of the drought, they've upped the ante to a 30% reduction target. They’re also on track for the 20% reductions in waste and energy.

Google has built a green transportation system that includes biodiesel shuttles and the largest corporate electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the country. Every day, Google shuttles keep thousands of Googlers out of the driver's seat and reduce their impact on the environment. And GFleet—their car-sharing program for Googlers on campus—includes the newest generation of plug-in vehicles. Google estimates that their shuttles and GFleet result in net annual savings of more than 29,000 metric tons of CO2. Color-branded bicycles are also provided for on-site use (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Google provides bicycles for on-site travel

Google has created an internal program known as “Sustainable Pursuit”--based on the popular trivia pursuit game and the LEED framework--to measure and improve how they operate their buildings. When not racing down play slides (Figure 3), teams at Google offices around the world compete for points depending on their site’s sustainable initiatives. Through this program, the Google Real Estate & Workplace Services Green Team works closely with facility managers at Google offices worldwide to implement innovative, locally-appropriate strategies to reduce waste, save energy and water, and improve indoor environmental quality. Google also makes it a priority to document and share team innovations so that organizational knowledge is spread across all Google teams (Google, 2015).

Figure 4. The famous slides in the Google offices

(source: Saleem, 2014)

No specific references to buildings energy efficiency measures at Googleplex were identified, but the company's Carbon Disclosure Report flags measures used in Google buildings more broadly, as summarized in Table 1, which shows carbon savings, costs, and simple payback times by measure.

Table 1. Examples of Google's recent energy efficiency upgrades

Source: Investor CDP 2014 Information Request

Documentation

Bort, J,. October 6, 2013. “Tour Google's Luxurious 'Googleplex' Campus in California” Business Insider. Accessed March 19, 2015. http://www.businessinsider.com/google-hq-office-tour-2013-10?op=1#ixzz3UsCVstyp

Dumaine, B. July 12, 2012, “Google's zero-carbon quest” Fortune Magazine. Accessed March 5, 2015.http://fortune.com/2012/07/12/googles-zero-carbon-quest/

Fixsen, A. February 2015. “Google Unveils Master Plan for Silicon Valley HQ” Architectural Record. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2015/02/150227-Google-Unveils-Master-Plan-for-New-Silicon-Valley-HQ.asp

Google. 2014. "Investor CDP 2014 Information Request: Google Inc.." Carbon Disclosure Project, http://www.cdp.net

Google's Proposal for North Bayshore. 2015. Accessed April 30, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3v4rIG8kQA

Google, Inc. 2015. Sustainability website. Accessed March 5, 2015. http://www.google.com/green/efficiency/oncampus/#building

Lubell, S. 2012. "High Tech Headquarters" Greensource Magazine. http://greensource.construction.com/features/currents/2012/1207-High-Tech-Headquarters.asp

Martin, C. February 26, 2015. "Google Makes Largest Clean-Power Bet to Fund SolarCity Roofs". Washington Post. Accessed March 19, 2015

Saleem, F. October 21, 2014. “What it’s like to work in Facebook, Google and Apple: Cool Workplace Environments.” Yologadget. Accessed March 5, 2015. http://www.yologadget.com/others/what-its-like-to-work-in-facebook-google-and-apple-cool-workplace-environments/

Wainwright, O, February 2015. “Google's new headquarters: an upgradable, futuristic greenhouse.” The Guardian. Accessed March 6, 2015

Googleplex. 2015. Wikipedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googleplex

Wolfram, C. March 2, 2015. "Why did Apple pay so much for 130 MW of solar?" Accessed March 15, 2015. https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/why-did-apple-pay-so-much-for-130-mw-of-solar-is-google-part-of-the-answer/?utm_source=Blog+for+Mar+2%2C+2015&utm_campaign=blog+re+37&utm_medium=email