Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

What Happened to Google's Climate Ambitions? | Ep203: Kate Brandt

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Apr 2, 2025

Kate Brandt, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer and former advisor on energy to President Obama, dives into the tough balance between tech innovation and climate goals. She discusses Google's ambitious target to halve emissions by 2030 and the challenges they face, especially with rising AI energy demands. Brandt shares insights from her Pentagon days on energy security and highlights cutting-edge sustainable technologies emerging from Alphabet's projects. The conversation also touches on the revolutionary role of AI in combating climate change while navigating the complexities of corporate responsibility.

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INSIGHT

Grid Interconnection Challenges

Interconnected grids offer flexibility and efficient resource allocation, like Nordpool.
Geopolitical realities create tension between ideal grid setups and national energy control.

INSIGHT

Clean Firm Power and SMRs

Clean firm power sources are needed to complement renewables and natural gas.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a promising technology, and Google partnered with Kairos Power.

ANECDOTE

European Energy Crisis and Utility Lag

Europe's energy crisis highlighted the need for increased grid efficiency and consumer interaction.
Utilities lag in understanding the changing landscape of electricity displacing fossil fuels.

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Google has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the tech world, but what happens if it falls short of its goals? How does the company balance innovation with environmental responsibility? And can AI really help reduce emissions?

This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Kate Brandt, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer, to unpack these critical questions. Brandt offers an insider's view of how one of the world's most influential companies is tackling the climate crisis, from tackling its own emissions to the impact of misinformation on its platform. Brandt has a fascinating background, having spent time in both the Pentagon, and advising President Obama on energy security and sustainability issues. In her current role, she oversees the team working to reduce Google's environmental impact.

Google has set itself an ambitious company-wide climate goal of halving their 2019 emissions by 2030 but their latest sustainability report showed that they were off track, as the company has grown and increased their investment in energy-hungry artificial intelligence. As providers of curated information at a global scale, Google has a unique intersection with the climate problem. Primarily, their impact comes from the electricity they buy, but they're also able to guide customers' decisions through the provision of information and through their parent company Alphabet.

They've made some pretty bold investments in innovative, disruptive companies, so measuring their impact is arguably more than the sum of their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Nevertheless, missing a clear target can't be very comfortable. Brandt discusses the company’s ambitious yet challenging emissions reduction targets, the transformative potential of AI in environmental solutions, and the innovative clean technologies that might just help us reimagine our energy future.

From predicting floods and reducing aircraft emissions, to molten salt batteries and grid optimization technologies, this conversation reveals how Google thinks about innovation and the climate.

Leadership Circle:

Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.

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