Changing business operations to drive carbon reduction across Google featuring Kendra Tupper

Excited to share the fourth interview in my LinkedIn series giving you a deeper look into Google’s decarbonization work and introducing you to the Googlers driving our climate and clean energy efforts. Today, I’m sharing my conversation with Kendra Tupper, PE , who shares her journey from working as a mechanical engineer focused on renewable energy in real estate to serving as the City of Boulder’s Chief Sustainability and Resilience Officer to now developing and leading our company-wide carbon reduction roadmap at Google. More from Kendra ??

MT: Tell me about your role on Climate Ops and your journey to get here.?

KT: I lead the development and implementation of our company-wide net zero and carbon reduction roadmap. This means I work with over a dozen teams across Google to drive reductions in our carbon footprint. I identify the gaps we need to bridge to meet our ambitious goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2030, and then collaborate with these teams on new solutions to pilot.

I studied mechanical engineering in grad school, and then went to work at an engineering consulting firm called WSP group, where I helped model and design large-scale commercial buildings to be cleaner and more energy efficient. After a few years there, I joined Rocky Mountain Institute, initially focusing on building decarbonization, but also working on broad initiatives across transportation, electric utilities, and decarbonization plans at the city, state, and national level. That led me to my next role as Chief Sustainability and Resilience Officer for the City of Boulder. My title really reflected the changing priorities at the time and the need for leadership in responding to the rise in climate disasters, like wildfires and flooding, that were having disproportionate socioeconomic impacts on communities in Boulder.?

In this role, I crossed paths with Google a few times and realized the company was deeply engaged in transforming the electricity system, not just for their own carbon footprint but for the world’s. I never thought I’d work for a global corporation, but this was systemic change I wanted to be part of. I first joined Google’s real estate sustainability team, focused on decarbonizing our offices, and then transitioned to my current role working to decarbonize our entire operations and value chain.?

MT: What are some of the biggest differences between working on the decarbonization strategy and roadmap for a city, versus for a global technology company??

KT: When you’re approaching decarbonization from a city lens, there’s a lot more you can do within your direct control to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, you can set new energy codes and implement new energy policies to help you achieve your clean energy goals. At Google, we have to do a lot more external engagement - and do it in every locality where we operate - to build the support needed to unlock policy change that advances our decarbonization goals.?

Of course, the stakeholders are very different too. At the city level, nothing happens if you don’t have the support of the community/voters. This means A LOT of community engagement and working groups with residents, business owners, and community organizations to understand stakeholder needs, and co-create policies that would work. We also had to continually show that we’re doing something impactful with people’s tax dollars and that they should continue to support our efforts. In Boulder, we had a long history of community support for sustainability - we were actually the first city in the nation to pass a voter-approved carbon tax to fund the city’s decarbonization efforts.?

At Google, while it’s important to show impact, you have the added requirement of making a very compelling business case for the company - to secure support for our decarbonization work, we’re competing against other business priorities and funding needs. Plus we want to advance solutions that are scalable for other companies too.?

MT: So how do you go about “winning over” these businesses across Google to prioritize decarbonization alongside their other needs and objectives??

KT: You have to think about how to frame decarbonization in a way that is meaningful to them. This was something I learned working in city government: we framed our sustainability initiatives to community members in terms of social benefits, healthier lifestyle, protection against future climate related disasters, better quality of life, etc. At Google, it’s all about how decarbonization is relevant to current business needs.?

For example, Google Cloud customers and potential customers want to see clear emissions reduction targets for our Cloud operations, because this in turn helps them reduce their Scope 3 (indirect) carbon footprint and meet their own decarbonization goals. So, there’s real business value in investing time and resources in driving emissions reductions. We see the same thing for our Pixel consumers, where using low-carbon materials can make products more marketable to the climate-conscious consumer.

MT: And these are just a few of the many different businesses that contribute to Google’s carbon footprint - and that are part of the solutions to reducing it. How did we stand up a central operation at Google to measure our carbon footprint and then drive concerted action toward our carbon reduction targets??

KT: After we set our net zero goal, we needed a roadmap for how we were going to get from Point A to Point B and what gaps we needed to fill along the way. We first developed a robust and accurate “business as usual” emissions forecast out to 2030, based on underlying growth forecasts for things like data center fleet size, headcount, office building square footage, and sales projections for our devices and products.?

Then we mapped out over a dozen businesses across the company that would be key stakeholders for carbon reduction. We worked with each of these businesses to identify ways that we can feasibly reduce annual emissions by 2030. So far, we’ve identified over 100 initiatives, which range from contracting renewable energy to help decarbonize our electricity demand to using recycled aluminum in our Pixel phones to purchasing low-carbon alternatives to steel and cement in the construction of our data centers. We asked the businesses to estimate the cost required so we could prioritize efforts with the greatest savings and emissions impact.

After modeling this, we performed a gap analysis to our 2030 goals to determine where the remaining emissions are coming from and what we need to do either externally (e.g. policy change) and internally (e.g. more resources and investments or piloting new solutions) to reduce them.?

MT: It’s truly amazing how we were able to not only build this roadmap across the company, but do the even harder work of changing the way businesses operate to factor in carbon reduction. While this work is very much still in progress, what have you learned so far from it? What, if anything, has surprised you??

KT: I’ve had a few misconceptions about which initiatives would be cost-effective. For example, I thought that reducing the emissions from construction of new data centers would be really expensive and hard to achieve but we are seeing a number of promising options in this space. I’ve been proven wrong (in a good way) a few times when some of the carbon reduction gaps I predicted would be the hardest to bridge were ultimately met with creative and cost-effective solutions.?

I’ve also learned that as much as Google is focused on driving reductions within our own footprint, we’re thinking beyond that - about how we can have the greatest impact on global decarbonization. For example, having started my career in real estate and building decarbonization, I know that the buildings and construction sector accounts for about 37% of global emissions, BUT less than 10% of Google’s emissions. Even though the impact on our own operational footprint will be relatively small, we’re still working hard to make low carbon office buildings more cost-effective and accessible - because we know this can drive significant progress for global emissions reductions.