Google launches new features to help users shrink their carbon footprints

guest · Oct 6, 2021

Google launches new features to help users shrink their carbon footprints
There are updates to Search, Maps, Travel, Nest, and more
October 6, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/...emissions-carbon-footprint-maps-search-travel

Google announced a suite of new features that it says will help people who use their platforms make more sustainable choices. The new services focus on reducing planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and are primarily found on Search, Maps, Travel, and Nest.

But before we get into the details of how their new tools work, a quick note of context; some environmental advocates have called out companies for shifting responsibility for the climate crisis onto individual consumers. Holding big corporate polluters accountable for their emissions far outweighs any one consumers’ individual impact. And Wednesday’s announcements from Google aren’t really designed to reduce the company’s own carbon footprint.
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SEARCH
Sometime this month, Google plans to switch up the way results for “climate change” appear in its Search platform. Users will be led to a dedicated results page with “high quality climate-related information,” according to Google.
The company also says it wants to make it easier for consumers to see more eco-friendly options when shopping on Google.
MAPS
Starting Wednesday, people in the US can see which driving routes are the most fuel-efficient when using Google Maps.
If the fuel-efficient route is slower, the app will show users their options so that they can make an educated decision on which to choose.
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TRAVEL
When searching for flights through Google, starting Wednesday, users will now be able to see the carbon dioxide emissions associated with each flight. They’ll even be able to see how their seat choice affects their individual carbon footprint.
NEST
Google launched a new service for Nest thermostat owners in the US, which it plans to start rolling out over the next several weeks. It’s called “Nest Renew,” and allows users to automatically shift their heating and cooling to times when there’s more renewable energy available on the grid.
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Google: Giving you more sustainable choices with Google

Companies aren’t the only ones asking what more we can do to help the planet — increasingly people are asking themselves those questions, too. So today we’re sharing several new ways people can use Google’s products to make sustainable choices.
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vasa1 · Oct 6, 2021

Another way Google can help is to stop pushing applications on the Android platform that users may not need but can't remove. Each time that app gets an update, there's a carbon cost to the download and install process.

guest · Oct 12, 2021

Google Cloud will show users their gross carbon emissions
The company says Earth Engine can help businesses tackle climate change.
October 12, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/google-cloud-platform-carbon-footprint-emissions-environment-163339146.html

Google Cloud has added tools to help users gain a better understanding of their environmental impact as part of the company's broader efforts to combat climate change. The Carbon Footprint feature shows the gross carbon emissions linked to the electricity consumption of someone's Cloud Platform use. It displays emissions over time and can break down the data by project, product and region.

Companies will be able to roll this information into their own emissions data for internal audits and making carbon disclosures (they can export the data to Salesforce Sustainability Cloud, for instance).
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Google Cloud will also flag applications that are not in use, as well as their carbon emissions. Google suggests that deleting apps identified by the Unattended Project Recommender will help companies mitigate security risks, lower costs and reduce their carbon footprint.
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In addition, Google is bringing Earth Engine to the Cloud Platform for select users. Using satellite imagery, data sets and other tools, companies can harness Earth Engine to "track, monitor and predict changes in the Earth’s surface" caused by extreme weather events or human activity. That, Google says, will enable businesses to reduce and mitigate risks, "become more resilient to climate change threats" and save money. Companies can apply for access to Earth Engine through Google Cloud.
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Google: Announcing new tools to measure—and reduce—your environmental impact

As we work to achieve 24/7 carbon-free energy, we help you take immediate action to decarbonize your digital applications and infrastructure. We're also working with our customers across every industry to develop new solutions for the unique climate change challenges that organizations face. Today, we’re excited to expand our portfolio of carbon-free solutions and announce new partnerships that will help every company build a more sustainable future.
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guest · Jul 26, 2022

Google: Google Cloud announces new products, partners and programs to accelerate sustainable transformations (June 26, 2022)

Everyone wants to better understand how to become more sustainable, and take actions that have a meaningful impact. This year in the U.S., “how to reduce my carbon footprint” is being searched more than ever, and searches for “what is greenwashing” have increased five-fold over the past decade. Businesses and individuals alike are wondering how to turn sustainability ambition into action.
Providing climate insights for every organization
Last week we announced two new climate insights offerings for the public sector to help institutions better understand the risks to infrastructure and natural resources due to climate change.
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Expanding the Carbon Sense suite
In the latest launch of the Carbon Sense suite of products we’re adding new data, expanding reporting coverage and making it easier for cloud architects and administrators to prioritize sustainability.

Last year we announced Carbon Footprint for Google Cloud, which helps companies measure, report and reduce the gross carbon emissions of using Google Cloud services. We’re excited that early next year, we’ll launch Carbon Footprint for Google Workspace, providing similar reporting functionality for the emissions associated with products like Gmail, Meet, Docs and others.
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guest · Jul 26, 2022

Singapore looks to drive green fintech development with Google Cloud partnership
Point Carbon Zero Programme will shortlist 100 fintech applications that address climate finance challenges, which then will be developed and tested on Google's open source cloud platform
July 26, 2022

Singapore is looking to drive the development of climate fintech products and services through a new initiative jointly launched with Google Cloud. The scheme aims to shortlist 100 applications that then will be developed and tested on the cloud vendor's open source platform

Called Point Carbon Zero Programme, the initiative is parked under Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) Project Greenprint and taps climate fintech services to boost the sector's access to "accurate and granular" climate-related data. This, in turn, will fuel more efficient deployment of capital towards green and sustainable projects, according to MAS.
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In addition, the new initiative would offer selected applicants mentorship and funding from Google as well as access to aggregated climate disclosure, environmental, and public utilities data from Project Greenprint. Drawn from more than 200 public datasets across different sectors and hosted on Google Cloud, the data could be used to improve the accuracy of the climate fintech applications in measuring carbon emissions and the impact of an organisation's efforts to reduce these.

Shortlisted applicants also would be able to access Google Cloud's Carbon Sense services to track their own carbon footprint tied to their cloud usage. New climate-related datasets curated from these new applications could be made available, subject to the data owner's consent, to Project Greenprint's partners.
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Through the Point Carbon Zero Programme, Ng added that Google hoped to drive green financial data flows and enable countries as well as organisations to make quantifiable steps forward towards a carbon-free future.
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guest · Sep 3, 2022

Google Changed Emission Calculations in Google Flights, Making Air Travel Look Cleaner
By Molly Taft - August 25, 2022

When Google launched a carbon emissions tool for its flight tracker last fall, allowing consumers to see the individual emissions created by each flight they were browsing, it received widespread attention and praise from industry leaders and climate scientists alike. But last month the tech giant quietly shifted the algorithm to exclude a crucial component of the overall greenhouse gas impact of air travel—meaning that emissions data on the flights it lists now are much lower than they were before.

“Google has airbrushed a huge chunk of the aviation industry’s climate impacts from its pages,” Dr Doug Parr, the chief scientist and policy director of Greenpeace UK, told the BBC.
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The change, Google said in a public Github post from last month, was made after consultations with the tech giant’s “academic and industry partners.” In the Github post, Google said it has decided to only calculate carbon dioxide emissions from flights, rather than the cumulative effect of all greenhouse gasses—known as CO2E, or “carbon dioxide equivalents,” in climate-speak.

In particular, Google has decided to temporarily do away with calculations related to contrails, the clouds that form behind planes, that can have a big impact on flight emissions.
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Google says that calculating contrail impacts on individual flights is tricky, and while it’s worth doing, they want to develop a mechanism to make more accurate predictions for specific flights. “We strongly believe that non-CO2 effects should be included in the model, but not at the expense of accuracy for individual flight estimates,” a Google spokesperson told Earther in an email.
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guest · Sep 7, 2022

Google Maps can now tune its eco-friendly navigation for gas, diesel, and electrified vehicles
By Mitchell Clark - September 7, 2022

Google is expanding Maps’ eco-friendly routing mode, rolling the feature out in dozens of European countries and making it even more powerful by letting you pick what type of fuel your car runs on.

The feature, originally launched in the US and Canada last year, will highlight routes that use less energy if they have a similar ETA to other alternate routes. Google says that starting today, it is rolling out to users in “nearly 40” European countries, including France, Ireland, Poland, Spain, and the UK. (It was introduced in Germany last month.)
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Google’s also adding the ability to tell Maps if your car has a diesel, gas, hybrid, or electric powertrain, so it can find the most efficient route for your specific type of vehicle and provide more accurate estimates on how much more efficient the eco-friendly route is. The system is built on information pulled from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and European Environment Agency, combined with Google Maps driving trends to train machine learning models based on the most popular engines in given regions.
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Google: More ways to drive sustainably and save money with Google Maps

By Rubén Lozano-Aguilera - September 7, 2022
Imagine you’re planning a day trip from your home in Athlone, Ireland over to Limerick – over an hour and a half journey. To decide how to get there, you open Google Maps — which offers multiple navigation options including walking, cycling and public transit directions. Given the length of the trip, it makes the most sense to drive, and you immediately search for the fastest route.

But what if there were other options: A route that would take nine minutes more, but would save nearly 30% of your expected fuel consumption?
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Now rolling out: Eco-friendly routing across Europe
This is now possible thanks to eco-friendly routing in Google Maps, which starts rolling out in nearly 40 countries across Europe toda

With eco-friendly routing, you can choose a route that’s optimized for lower fuel consumption, which helps you save money on fuel and reduce carbon emissions — something that’s top of mind for many Europeans. And this is a real concern - according to Statista’s 2022 report, road transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions throughout Europe.
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guest · Nov 12, 2022

Routora optimizes Google Map multi-stop routes to save gas and time
By Martin Brinkmann - November 12, 2022

Routora is a Chrome extension and Internet service that optimizes multi-stop routes on Google Maps to save gas and travel time.
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Google Maps is a popular choice when it comes to finding the best route between two locations. Google designed its service to find the best route automatically based on traffic and other information. While that works well between two locations, Google Maps falls short when multiple stops are added.

The service finds the fastest route between each stop you make, but it does not rearrange stops if time or gas can be saved doing so.
That is where Routora comes into play. The Chrome extension calculates the best route taking all entered stops on Google Maps into account.
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Closing Words
Routora is an interesting route optimization tool for Google Maps that should appeal to drivers who make several stops regularly during the day. Whether it is for making deliveries, sightseeing or just visiting multiple people or stores.
The route optimization feature does not take other factors, such as stop priorities or deadlines, into account when calculating the best route.

The developer is working on an Android version that should improve the handling further.
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Routora - Google Maps Route Optimization

We take your multiple stop Google Maps route and move around the address order to help you navigate your trip in the shortest time possible

- Save time⏱
- Save gas money⛽️
- Reduce your carbon footprint
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