Following on from the introduction of Carbon Footprint for Google Workspace at Google Cloud Next ‘23, admins can now use the service to monitor and analyse their electricity usage.
The announcement comes via a partnership with Electricity Maps, a company providing an API offering readouts of “real-time and predictive electricity signals” to customers.
Previously, only top-level admins could access carbon footprint information, but now the ability to assign a custom role with the ability to do so is baked into Workspace.
Carbon emissions on the rise
Google is right to note in the announcement that cloud computing - and AI - have drastically increased carbon emissions from the tech industry.
However, while the incorporation of the Electricity Maps API will help companies know what needs to be done to keep emissions down, the announcement fails to address the fact of the matter; that, as one of the best cloud storage and AI tool providers, and largest companies in the world, Google is probably more responsible as a contributor to climate change than any of its customers.
The announcement does include a mention of Google’s intent to be “carbon-free” by 2030, by both cutting down and moving to “nature-based” solutions, while sharing these with companies worldwide, which is honourable, and, providing it actually achieves this, does mean that Carbon Footprint for Workspace isn’t just Google passing the buck to others.
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