Feb 17, 2022 - Energy & Climate

Google focuses on idle Cloud projects to reduce carbon emissions

Andrew Freedman

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Google will help its Cloud users save energy and reduce emissions by providing new tools to let them manage energy use from their idle projects.

Driving the news: Google on Wednesday introduced the Carbon Sense suite. It's a collection of features that aims to help companies quantify and report their emissions, as well as reduce them.

Zoom in: The company says its "Active Assist" feature will allow customers to spot their energy-intensive idle projects and help manage them better to reduce their carbon footprint.

The recommendations given by the feature estimate the impact of removing an idle project in kilograms of CO2 reduced per month.
For example, users can choose cleaner regions to run their data-hungry projects.

“It can be difficult for businesses to accurately understand, reduce, and report on carbon emissions,” said Google Sustainability lead Chris Talbott, in a statement.

Flashback: Google is working to meet a 2030 goal for running its data center operations on carbon-free energy 24/7.

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Google focuses on idle Cloud projects to reduce carbon emissions

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