(bright upbeat music) >> Welcome to theCUBE. Welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm Dave Nicholson and with me today, I have Jen Bennett, technical director out of the office of the CTO at Google. Jen, welcome to theCUBE. How are you? >> I'm doing great, Dave. Thanks for having me. >> It's great to have you here. Now, some estimates have 1% of global electrical production. So all of the electricity produced globally, 1% of that is being used currently for the category we call ICT or Information Communications Technology. By 2030, the estimate is that if that goes unchecked, unmeasured, unmitigated, we could be at between 8% and 20% consumption of all of the electricity generated globally, at that point. The question I have for you to start this off is, is that sustainable and if not, what are you and the folks at Google thinking about in this area? >> Yeah Dave, that is a great question. And I think one that's top of mind for many of us in the industry, and there's unfortunately not a simple answer, but for sure, I think that sustainability has been something that's been a core value of ours from the very beginning at Google. And we've really focused on the impact that we have throughout, you know, our computation on climate and on other aspects of the environment. And so I think this is something that's a really important topic that we need to discuss. And so, you know, I want to give you a little bit of a history from a Google perspective. You know, in 2007, we were the first major company to become carbon neutral. So today, you hear a lot about companies talking about carbon neutrality and how important that is to reach, you know, some of these targets that we've been talking about from the Paris Climate Agreement, et cetera. In 2017, you know, as we were looking at this target of how do we become more carbon free, we became the first company, first major company to match a hundred percent of our electricity use associated with our computation that you talked about earlier with renewable energy. So this was a really big push for us. So with the question around, is it sustainable, has to kind of go back to, well, where does the energy come from and how is it generated? And renewable energy is one of those big pieces of the puzzle here. And so we invested very heavily in what was called Power Purchase Agreements. This is, you know, creating the mechanisms, the financial instruments to, you know, enable energy companies to transition from maybe things that are less carbon friendly to more renewable energy. So that was a big emphasis that we put on that first decade of climate action. Since then, and you may be familiar that in 2020, we announced probably our most ambitious goal yet, which is to operate on carbon free 24 by seven. So one of the things that you'll appreciate is that renewable energy, the sun doesn't shine 24/7, wind doesn't blow 24/7. And so we need more to become carbon free, 24/7 around the clock. We need storage techniques. We need a lot of other potential, you know, technologies that are evolving. And so we're very committed to investing in making sure that we advance those technologies just like we did with renewable energy. And so this is a really ambitious goal. We don't know how to get there yet. And that's why we often referred to is as a moonshot. >> Yeah, so yeah, that is a moonshot. And it's interesting because it sounds like you've decided to use a metric that is more difficult than the metric you could use, which is aggregate neutrality. You mentioned the sun doesn't shine 24 hours a day. Well, of course it does somewhere on the planet, but not on an individual facility. So if you're... If you're measuring carbon neutral at a certain physical location, that's a higher bar. So you talk about storage with batteries and things like that. So it's admirable that you're not taking the sort of easy way out, and looking at it just from an aggregate perspective. >> Yeah. And I guess I would say, you know, I think it's a journey. So you referred to it as sort of easy way out. And, I know, I certainly... I think this is one of the challenges is that oftentimes, action... Climate action can seem overwhelming and we have to find ways to advance and to get to impact. And so I think, you for us and our journey, you know, we started with how can we best make the use of the energy that we have. And so we applied machine learning in our data centers to optimize the energy utilization so that we could really bring down, you know, or optimize how we used energy in the first place. Of course the most renewable energy is the energy you don't use. But then I think the next point was where do we go next and how do we continue to advance to a place where we do get to a carbon free future, at least for us with our energy use as well. And I think, just as importantly, the next step is, "And how do we enable others?" And that's where we're at today. And so, you know, we've made some really exciting announcements and we're hoping that that's just the start of many more to come. >> Well, let's talk about that. So how do you enable others on this journey? >> Yeah, it's great. So when we talked a little bit about carbon free and that idea of energy in 24 x 7, one of the things that we started to focus on was how do we look at energy on an hourly basis, not on an annual basis or on a monthly basis. And so, as we started to pull the, you know, gather that data instrument up, we realized that this information is extremely valuable to our customers as well, who leverage our cloud platform. And so one of the big announcements that we made as part of our suite of sustainability offerings is really... It's called carbon footprint. And it's really providing that information to customers that use our cloud technology to give them a sense of where, how carbon friendly, the energy that they're using. Of course, we are carbon neutral and so effectively the neutrality is zero. But for those who really want to make sure that they're selecting locations where there's clean energy, making sure that their digital infrastructure is running as efficiently as possible. This new tool carbon footprint will give them the opportunity to see that just like you might see on your billing, you know, how much you spend, how much carbon emission there is associated with that as well. So that's one of our big announcements and we've worked very closely with customers like HSBC and Twitter and Salesforce as we've developed that capability so that we know that it helps meet their needs as well. >> So right now the part of your carbon footprint that is managed by this capability would be say GCP consumption or the Google part of a organization's footprint. Any plans in the future to integrate other data sources into a centralized capability? >> Yeah. So I think we have a lot of other exciting news we shared as well. You know, we recognize that our customer's digital footprint is a growing part of their business. As we've seen, sort of the pandemic has accelerated this shift to digital, and we want to make sure that we're bringing the most climate friendly cloud platform, to enable that. But a lot of our customers also have other parts of their business that aren't digital. And so being able to bring sustainability offerings to them, to help them with data, as you mentioned, but also with other tooling is really important. And so the other exciting announcement that we made is that, we are bringing Google Earth Engine to Google Cloud for our customers and Google Earth Engine has been around for over a decade used by, climate researchers, NGOs, It's really a trusted platform for earth observation. And so we're really excited to bring this to our Google Cloud customers as a mechanism, to look at the impacts of climate on their business, as well as see how their business is impacting the environment. And so this is an amazing platform that we're really excited and have partnered very closely with customers like Unilever, to leverage this platform in their business. >> So what are some practical examples of data sources that come out of the Google Earth platform and how they integrate from a sustainability perspective? What are some insights that organizations can gain by leveraging this? >> Super question. So, within Earth Engine, there is, over 50 petabytes of data and over 700 curated data sets. It's the world's largest for earth observation. Things like satellite imagery to look at land cover and deforestation for example, soil moisture, water, and availability of water in flood zones. There's just a... It's a really rich catalog and has been, you know, really curated over a matter of time. It brings also not just historical data, but is constantly refreshed. And so for someone who wants to look at changes over a period of time, it's really the perfect platform for that. And so for example, with Unilever, we have been looking at deforestation and the association with their supply chain because of course, many companies like Unilever have committed to a zero deforestation, And pit land conversion as part of their commitments to climate action. And so this is a really powerful capability. It's sort been kept within the research community and the NGOs for such a long time, that we're really excited to start to now evolve that into applications where we can make a real difference. I think this is part of our mission is to say, "How do we extend our reach in our climate action to not only the billions of users that use our platform, but also our customers who also reach many, many users through their products." So we're really excited about that opportunity. >> So imagine five, 10 years in the future. How does this play out? Give us a view into the enterprise of the future and the kind of information they're going to have at their fingertips. You gave a great example of deforestation within a supply chain, and we're not talking software supply chain here, we're physical supply chains, >> Physical supply chain, yeah. >> If think about a modern enterprise having hundreds or thousands of connections with other enterprises when you're trying to understand what the impact is that you're having on the earth, you have to take all of those things into account. So, can you kind of walk us through a scenario of what that might look like in the not too distant future, the kinds of things they'll have access to? >> You know, I wish I had that, the vision of five to 10 years from now, but if I look at what has evolved even over the last few years, you know, we've been... As consumers, we have so much information at our fingertips, that's both a blessing and a curse in many ways. And I think our job as technology providers is to make sure that the technology that we bring enhances the ability to make decisions quickly and that's... And effectively. And I think that's really what the power of these tools is enabling. So if I look into the future and I look at a little bit of the past and say, you know, "How do we navigate?" We often navigate no longer by paper maps. We navigate by using digital maps. And that same capability is what I'm talking about with some of this geospatial capability is being able to see that information in a way that's very meaningful, very powerful, but also helps you make decisions right now. And so I think that capability is going to be really critical and it's going to bring the complexity of information in a way that I believe is going to help us make better decisions. So today, if we take that... if we continue to take that example that we talked about, you know, often we talk about a lot of decision-making in terms of, you know, pricing, I think in the future, you're going to start to see the complexity of decision making, you know, sort of, you know, becomes more complex, but with the capability and the tools and some of the AI capabilities, we're going to be able to make that very tangible for people so that the decision making is fairly straightforward, but enables us to take into consideration the complexity of the ecosystem. Really excited about the future. I also believe that the future involves a lot more collaboration than maybe we see today, because I think one of the challenges with climate change is, we need to come to an agreed, you know, a shared truth, a shared sense of truth. And that really means we have to break down some of these silos we've created, you know, whether it be in business, whether it be in collaboration with the ecosystem but we're going to start to see a lot more collaboration around data. >> Yeah. Well, Those other things, those other costs that are sometimes hidden and hard to fair it through, in economics terms we refer to those as externalities and may have always been a challenge, how do you account for those real costs of your activity? Jen, I have to say that your passion for this comes through, despite the technology dividing us, it must be a delight working in an environment where you have the support of your organization. And you've got a clear mission that you can wake up every day and pursue that. Talk a little bit about that from a personal perspective. >> Yeah, I wake up every day, well, wake up, I think about this all the time, and I'm reminded of it, everything that I do, you know, whether it be turning off the lights, whether it be running the water too long. I mean, we're now experiencing droughts like we never have you know, historically. And so I think all these things impact us on a personal level. It's really... I feel so fortunate to be able to be thinking about this, to be able to take on something that really is one of the most pressing issues of our time. But I will say I'm also truly inspired by the customers I get to work with and their passion for the same topic. And I really feel like we've crossed this point of really moving to action. So it's no longer just about debating, you know, the science, if you will, we've really started to move into and what action can we take? And I think that is really what is going to both help move the technology and the ability to leverage technology and push us to continue to develop solutions that help make those actions real. But I also am very inspired by the fact that we have these large commitments across organizations to really make change. And I think this is what we all need. >> Well, Jen, thanks for joining us today in this CUBE Conversation and sharing some of the insights that you have along with Google and your customers. We appreciate the work that you do, it's critically important. With that, this is Dave Nicholson. Thanks for joining us for this CUBE Conversation. Until next time, see you then. (bright upbeat music)