CHAPTER FIVE
ANALYSIS
After analyzing Google’s public-facing documents outlining their sustainability commitments, energy portfolios, and circular economy, a few other contextual themes emerged. As a company, Google positions itself as a leader in the industry, especially with renewable energy acquisitions. This chapter further analyzes the themes from the Findings, arguing that Google positions itself as the benevolent answer in the industry for climate crisis. I also explain the justifications the company makes for what they do, and the way Google operates retroactively. This position bears numerous consequences because the commercialized essence of climate activism disguises retroactive responses, corporate benefit, and Google’s financial ownership in the renewable energy market. Analyzing the discourse has revealed such consequences, which can influence the way the public understands what company commitments entail. Chiefly, I argue Google positions themselves as benevolent, as capable of helping solve global crises and always in the public good. Such a position, I argue, hinders individuals from understanding the complexity of energy policy and portfolios and Google’s often muddy role in facilitating the ongoing climate crisis.
One of the overarching discursive pictures Google paints across the documents analyzed is being the best option for efficiency and saving the environment. Because of their size, their commitments and values, and their processes, Google argues they are best suited for the needs of the industry, making them the most viable option for those seeking their services. In the 2019 Environmental Report, Google states that “Our efforts have paid off: On average, a Google data center is twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center” (Google, 2019, p.19). The most recent report also emphasized, in technical terms, how “In 2018, the average annual power usage effectiveness (PUE)16 for our global fleet of data centers was 1.11, compared with the industry average of 1.67—meaning that Google data centers use about six times less overhead energy (11%) for every unit of IT equipment energy” (p. 20). Google’s efficiency is one part of their overall benevolence. Historically, corporate benevolence has existed as the result of how “a company’s socially responsible behavior can actually change consumers’ perceptions of how the company’s products perform, such that products created by socially responsible companies are experienced as performing better” (Chernev & Blair, 2015, p. 1421). Analysis of Google’s documents show an evolved definition of corporate benevolence, as Google promotes socially responsible behavior and as a result, their data centers operate more efficiently through PUE metrics, making them the best choice for consumers. This definitional change matters because Google’s product, their data centers for cloud services, are simultaneously posited as a reason why Google is so committed to climate change while also one of the infrastructural resources that have impacted the climate crisis.
In addition to the technical efficiency that positions them as the best option compared to their competitors, Google also emphasizes how their commitments to renewable energy reach beyond exclusively benefiting themselves. Even more clearly, Google posits, “We’re investing in a brighter future for everyone” (Google Data Centers, n.d.-b, para. 6). A decade ago a company post revealed that they were doing this as “We are making RE available for all through transformation of the power grid” (Hölzle, 2010). Google’s aggressive renewable energy purchasing and “additionality” requirements also impact the overall marketplace for renewable energy (Pichai, 2019, para. 5). Before investing in a project, Google prioritizes ensuring they are funding new projects in an attempt to add new projects to the local grid, to further increase labor and economic growth in the regions they operate. Google also wrote that, “by contracting to purchase so much energy for so long, we’re giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects’’ and “the inability of renewable energy developers to obtain financing has been a significant inhibitor to the expansion of renewable energy” (Hölzle, 2010, para. 3). Google’s financial earnings uniquely position them to sustainability invest in new projects, to contractually guarantee financial support for projects in ways that the projects needed (as funding is cited as one of the greatest obstacles), and to require these projects are “additional” (Google, 2013, p. 3). In this way, Google describes their ability to be benevolent as they can fund projects that would add more green energy to the power grid.
In 2019, Ruth Porat, Google’s SVP and CFO, wrote that Google’s energy investments also have a greater mission: “But our goal is much bigger: to enable everyone—businesses, policy makers and consumers—to create and live in a more sustainable world” (Porat, 2019, para. 2). The company discourse in their materials emphasizes how they operate efficiently, how they are constantly investing in their energy portfolios and have been carbon neutral, and how they thus enable all users of their services to have the opportunity to be efficient. Efficiency is also accomplished through collaborative innovation with artificial intelligence — DeepMind AI in Google’s data centers, a partnership not done elsewhere in the industry, has enabled reducing energy used for cooling, for example, by “up to 40 percent” (Evans & Gaio, 2016, para. 9). In this way, Google’s AI developments serve as an extension for the company’s benevolence, as they engineer responsible options for their efficiency and ultimately, their clients’ efficiency. The fundamental idea is further evidenced in the joint report through the Lawrence Berkeley National Institute, which projected that U.S. companies who used Google’s data centers for their cloud needs would lead to enormous energy savings:
If all U.S. business users shifted their email, productivity software, and CRM software to the cloud, the primary energy footprint of these software applications might be reduced by as much as 87% or 326 Petajoules. That’s enough primary energy to generate the electricity used by the City of Los Angeles each year (23 billion kilowattWhours). (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2013, p.1)
In 2011, a Google report explicitly outlined how the company’s services could help businesses reduce their environmental impact. The report noted the ways businesses save energy using Google’s cloud services, differentiating between in-house server operation and Google’s efficient servers (Google, 2011). The conclusion of the server case study ended with Google arguing that “cloud-based services like Gmail allow organizations of all sizes to reap these scale advantages of increased efficiency, reduced overhead costs, and smaller carbon footprint without needing the expertise of an army of software developers, hardware designers and data center technicians” (Google, 2011, p. 6). Again, through reports and documents like this, Google positions itself as an answer in the midst of the climate crisis from their energy buying, internal efficiency and PUE metrics, investments in non-profits, and awards and accolades.
Since many companies currently rely on cloud computing technology, such corporate commitments are an attractive proposition. Google’s claims and reports throughout their documents also express a form of corporate benevolence in the form of consumer activism. If clients choose Google’s services, so the logic goes, they can also support the fight against climate change because of the company’s efficiency and renewable energy commitments. In 2020, as the effects of climate crisis become increasingly dire, consumers want these options and now more than ever, it is in the best interest of corporations to be transparent and make climate change commitments. In January 2020, Larry Fink, the Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, which is the largest money management company in the world, issued a release that urged companies to take their environmental impacts seriously, leading to multiple companies announcing their plans for greener operation in recent weeks (Fink, 2020). Fink also wrote that “Disclosure should be a means to achieving a more sustainable and inclusive capitalism” (Fink, 2020, para. 23). Since Google has been positioning itself as the best option for numerous years, they have also inadvertently already beat competitors who are just beginning to take steps. With announcements from investment and management firms like BlackRock, Google becomes positioned as an attractive candidate for investment. With Fink’s (2020) announcement, sustainability as practical capitalism appears to be appearing on a national level in 2020 more than ever before. All actions companies take are now retroactive, as capitalism has played a big role in creating the climate crisis. While these are good steps in the right direction, the analysis in this thesis demonstrates how all of these steps are also part of how a technology company defines its brand and image. However, the disclosure Fink describes could be depicted by Google, and I argue that it is lacking and even problematic because such disclosures can mask retroactive behaviors as something worth rewarding.
Thus, I also argue that Google’s discourse exemplifies “soft law” practices for energy in developing markets (Nwete, 2007, p. 335). Nwete differentiates between “hard law” and “soft law” practices, noting how rather than governments requiring greener practices, soft law practices seek to “involve business in social responsibility voluntarily and by mutual understanding,” where the corporation “sees business as a private enterprise that has as its aim profit maximization with or without voluntary social responsibility” (Nwete, 2007, p. 335). Though Fink and capital management firms are in no way government agencies, explicit requirements for funding will impact the soft law practices that companies take and further positions Google’s discourse as timely and necessary. Google uses “soft law” as they position themselves as environmentally responsible, which is not as radical as they may try to make it appear throughout their documents.
Limits of Google’s Activism & Benevolence
Google positions environmental and economic benefits as simultaneously occurring. By positioning environment and economic benefits as simultaneous, Google embraces sustainability as practical capitalism. On the Google Data Centers website, a large subheading reads “we’re investing in a brighter future for everyone” (Google Data Centers, n.d.-b, para. 6). Such investments include the wind and solar projects they have acquired that include the PPAs, RECs, green tariffs, and clauses of “additionality.” Directly beneath the subheading, Google also promotes they are “going beyond investing in renewables for our own operations- we want to make carbon-free power more accessible for consumers of all types and sizes” and that “we share technology and insights to help others learn about the potential of renewable energy for solving environmental challenges” (Google Data Centers, n.d.-b, para. 6). As detailed in the Findings section, Google posits they add new renewable energy to the local and regional grids, and in regions they cannot, they purchase enough RECs to match their consumption in other regions (Google Sustainability, n.d.; Google, 2013). Google engineers work on reports to share with other competitors about how to make electronics more energy-efficient, and uses collaborative projects with artificial intelligence to ensure the lowest possible PUE (Google Data Centers, n.d.-a; Google, 2011; Porat, 2019; Gao, 2014). The company positions themselves as responsible in a marketplace that is more commonly endorsing or rewarding such actions. Sustainability as practical capitalism also exhibits aspects of corporate benevolence, a concept that is not novel.
In the 1960s, a legal scholar, Louis Kelso, noted the change from understanding the United States corporation as a “purely economic organization” (p. 260), to one of “corporate charity,” in which there is transformation of the business corporation “into an arm of the body politic, one more step in the unification of political and economic power in the administrators of government, one further victory for those who would substitute the distribution of wealth by power for the just distribution” (Kelso, 1960, p. 260). Google, a company that is an economic organization that positions itself as a champion for climate change and efficiency, unifies their political and economic powers as they make claims for themselves and their shareholders. Even in the 1960s, this was not a new concept, as “the corporation is being transformed from an economic entity into a political entity because we have ignored the nature of a capitalist economy” (Kelso, 1960, p. 260). In the 2000s, Chernev and Blair argued that corporate social responsibility in the forms of “charitable giving” and “promotion of various social causes unrelated to the company’s core business” have been viewed as “a tool for enhancing reputations and engendering goodwill among customers” (2015, p. 1412).
Google has exhibited such reputation enhancement through their involvement in REBA, their energy awards from the EPA, and the way they invest in green causes (REBA, 2020; EPA, 2019). For example, In Alphabet’s 2019 Climate Report, they argued that “Google’s tools help further the dissemination of climate information through the Google for Nonprofits program” (Alphabet, 2019, CDP, p. 73). Alphabet continued that “Google’s highly efficient products and services” including “Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Ad Grants, YouTube for Nonprofits” are made available “at no charge” to organizations that are taking action on climate change topics (Alphabet, 2019, p. 73). Such investments or accessibility offers reflect aspects of Google’s benevolence, using climate change as an extension of how they accomplish their goals and use sustainability as practical capitalism.
In contrast, however, while Alphabet and Google make claims about facilitating access for climate change nonprofits, a 2019 article published in The Guardian described Google’s financial contributions to climate crisis deniers in Washington D.C. (Kirchgaessner, 2019). In addition to financial contributions to such organizations, Fortune reported that Google employees also participated in the 2019 technology companies climate strike, alongside employees from Amazon and Microsoft (Newcomb, 2018). Google employees were angry with the company’s decisions to continue working with fossil fuel producing businesses, especially big oil companies, within their clientele portfolio (Newcomb, 2018). After the strike, Google made headlines again after firing four employees who participated in the walk out as a means of retaliation to “crush labor organizing” (Lutz, 2019, para. 1). An article in Vanity Fair reported the firing was made permissible after the company “redrafted its policies” with an anti-union organization “to retaliate against organizers, allowing the company a pretext for picking and choosing who to target” (Lutz, 2019, para 3). A month later, Google fired a fifth activist employee, who claimed she was fired in “retaliation” after she engineered a pop-up browser for her coworkers to be reminded of their rights to participate in matters that concern them (Lutz, Dec. 2019, para 2). With all of this in mind, it appears that while the company positions itself as an environmental activist and savior, the everyday operations reveal dissonant tensions. Google claims to be a champion of sustainability, but retaliates against workers who urge them to do better. At the end of the day, Google is a technology corporation that depends on generating revenue to appease and attract shareholders and investors. Despite their widespread claims about their commitments and values, it appears that income outweighs selectivity with clientele and with race to acquire renewable energy in their corporate portfolio. Additionally, by offering themselves as the best solution for those hoping to reduce their environmental footprint, they also simultaneously have retaliated against internal activist employees who sought to challenge their business practices. While Google positions itself as an activist for sustainable energy and practices, these anti-activist actions reveal the discursive limits of their benevolence.
Though this thesis did not explicitly examine particular finite resources required to build the servers and various devices in Google’s infrastructure (Brandt, 2019), it is worth noting that despite the company’s discourse and “circular economy” (Brandt, 2019), they address material compositions with vague goals to “Maximize the reuse of finite resources across our operations, products and supply chains and enable others to do the same” (Brandt, 2019, para. 9). Google does not state anything about where they buy their server materials from, whether they require mining projects in countries to abide by their sustainable practices, or how they address obsolescence beyond trying to reuse parts, shredding components within data centers. Such exclusions are important because, when understanding the materiality of media, everything requires resources and it is not enough to talk about the life cycle of infrastructure while neglecting the beginning. A company like Google who prides itself on being able to make impact from financial and scale standpoints should also be transparent about this too.
Google’s Renewable Energy Market
As discussed in the Findings, the 2019 Environmental report revealed that Google, in addition to being one of the “world’s largest corporate investors in renewable energy,” is also “the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy” which has enabled the costs of renewable power to “drop precipitously while its scale has grown dramatically” (Google, 2019, p. 30). Google also disclosed making investments in renewable energy as a way to make renewable energy prices more accessible (Pichai, 2019). Google documents also reveal how it was more costly to invest in renewable energy until recently, and in the future additional projects will continue to make such investments more affordable and better for the bottom line (Hölzle, 2016). In this way, Google again exemplifies “soft law” practices. Practices in “soft law” include “increases the social cost of investment when implemented by energy and mining companies but also improves business bottom line” (Nwete, 2007, p. 335). Even despite initial increases in expenses, “soft law” purports that the long-term bottom line also benefits.
After analyzing documents to understand more about PPAs, RECs, green tariffs, and the company’s “additionality” requirement, it becomes clear that Google, as the selfproclaimed largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, has also become the company who owns the most of the renewable energy market. When the company acquires an REC, they explicitly disclose how they “retire” the credit, which means they reserve the right to own that project and the energy produced by it. If others hope to access the energy, they would have to pay Google for such access. When a company is investing in renewable energy, it has the potential to stifle competition and even cooperation from others who cannot gain a foothold in this marketplace. Google’s fierce acquisition process is setting them up to own a majority share of the renewable energy in this country. As more companies begin investing in renewable energy market, Google’s ownership of the energy within the power grid allows them to set the terms of who can access their green energy while retaining the rights to the green aspects of the projects they acquired (Google, 2013, p. 3). This is concerning because Google could potentially rule the renewable energy marketplace in the United States. Additionally, “in a PPA, Google is agreeing to buy all the power from a project for many years,” ultimately reinforcing how Google will profit, own most renewable projects and they continue outpacing competitors in RECs, and set the conditions of energy access within power grids (Google, 2013, p. 4).
Google, has masked retroactivity under the guise of activism. Google proudly remarks throughout the materials analyzed that they have been “carbon neutral since 2007,” with all the green energy developments more recently taking off. Google, like other corporations, takes significant steps towards operating more sustainably, but they did not in the beginning. The damage has been done for years, and yet the company’s policies position Google as a champion for the green energy and sustainability cause. For example, Google’s CEO stated that, “Sustainability has been one of Google’s core values from our earliest days” and “A cornerstone of our sustainability efforts is our commitment to clean energy” (Pichai, 2019, para. 1). Urs Hölzle, Google’s SVP of Technical Infrastructure, stated that “operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning,” and “We’ve reported our carbon footprint and published information on our sustainability programs for many years in white papers, blog posts, and on our website” (Hölzle, n.d., para. 7). In 2018, Google’s CEO stated that,
Our data centers also have a strong impact on the economies around them. People often discuss “the cloud” as if it’s built out of air. But it’s actually made up of buildings, machinery, and people who construct and manage it all. Today we employ an estimated 1,900 people directly on our data center campuses. We’ve created thousands of construction jobs—both for our data centers themselves, and for renewable energy generation. And our renewable energy purchasing commitments to date will result in energy infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally, about twothirds of that in the United States. (Pichai, 2018, para. 4)
There are non-disclosed limits to the company’s ability to save the world. Even this quote demonstrates a lack of acknowledgement of the finite resources that comprise “the cloud.” Rather than focusing on resources, Google highlights the economic and labor generation their existence creates within the communities of operation. This is common, as a 2018 report through Oxford Economics analyzing Google’s data centers concluded that “Google data centers make significant contributions to jobs, incomes, and economic growth at the national, state, and community levels” and “Nationwide, the six data center campuses support more than 11,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in economic activity” (Oxford Economics, 2018, p. 25). However, in this report, the authors recognized that they did not “consider the manufacturing impacts associated with the equipment placed into service at the data centers,” instead focusing on Google’s economic generation for the community and state of operation, the employment rates, and philanthropic work (Oxford Economics, 2018, p. 25). In both the CEO’s quote and Oxford Economics’ report, Google documents do not assess finite resources beyond what is required to operate or mention the real ramifications of the data centers on local community resources.
Other points of contention arise when one considers the company’s commitments to renewable energy buying and the discrepancies within the green energy they acquire. For example, one document revealed how, “From the time we sign a contract, it takes one to two years to build the wind farm or solar field before it begins producing energy” (Hölzle, 2018, para. 2). However, they do not further elaborate about whether they count the renewable energy that will one day be generated from their contract acquisitions towards their overall “matching” when the energy has not actually been generated at that point. Does Google’s green operation do enough to truly neutralize their impacts, or are they masked as the PPA and RECs for projects that may not even be producing energy but will one day? The documents analyzed indicate that the company believes they provide enough transparency for consumers who do not understand the complexities of energy electrons and math equations for PUE and efficiency, Google does seem to have the answers. However, if consumers are not aware of the true implications of the company’s action, they could blindly reduce their consumer activism, leaving the company responsible for their sustainability efforts and believing that Google’s efforts are enough. Consumers rely on Google to enable their everyday lives, and what Google does or does not do matters.
Sustainability as practical capitalism, while it may make some necessary steps, does not guarantee resource consumption is being reduced. For example, consider Google’s Berkeley County South Carolina data center and local aquifer. Google won the right to increase extraction rights from this aquifer after a three-year battle, despite protests from journalists and local government agencies over concerns about long-term environmental impact (Gilmore & Troutman, 2020). Google is a corporation that positions themselves as sustainable. However, this sustainability is limited and in many ways emerges retroactively. A company operating sustainably positions them as a leader, attracts stakeholders and investors, and offers timely image enhancement. It appears capitalism, especially in 2020, is shifting towards corporate responsibility in relation to the climate crisis, a process which rewards the responsible as revolutionary or groundbreaking, while overlooking how many of those same companies fueled this crisis for decades.