Tackling greenwashing with cloud technology

In this guest post, Justin Keeble, managing director for global sustainability at public cloud giant Google Cloud, sets out why – in the current technology landscape – companies should not be resorting to greenwashing to artificially inflate their environmental standing

Greenwashing is a murky business. In the wake of last year’s COP 26 conference, businesses large and small have been held to a new wave of sustainability standards, and some have acted unethically to stay afloat.

In the UK alone, a number of regulatory bodies moved to hold businesses to account last year, with the likes of the Financial Conduct Authority and Competition and Markets Authority both setting new standards to stamp out misleading climate claims from January 2022. Meanwhile, the UK government is ramping up efforts to ensure ESG compliance in passing two new laws earlier this year for companies and limited liability partnerships, mandating organisations to produce a sustainability information statement in their annual reporting.

Despite this backdrop, recently commissioned research from Google Cloud confirmed that greenwashing continues to be an uncomfortable truth in the corporate world. According to the report, which looked at the state of play across the  Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) landscape, a stagginering 71% of UK executives agree that green hypocrisy exists, and that their organisation overstates sustainability efforts.

Importantly, this isn’t always with malintent. The majority of executives (72%) feel their organisation does in fact prioritise ESG efforts, with 64% adding that those they work with want to advocate sustainable change, but just don’t know how.

Whether it be actively or accidentally, any company engaging in green hypocrisy runs the risk of irreparably damaging both stakeholder and customer relationships, and crumbling their credibility. To avoid this, businesses must look to implement achievable and effective sustainability strategies, and an authentic means to measure their progress. Cloud technology can help with both.

According to our research, over 9 in 10 UK executives feel technology makes it possible for their organisation to be more sustainable. More often than not, tech innovation holds a central role in driving sustainable business processes, practices and operations, and cloud service providers (CSPs) are committed to advancing these areas of innovation. In delivering public cloud technology over the public internet, CSPs have transformed the pursuit and measurement of sustainability goals, and empower their customers to do the same.

The first step to becoming more sustainable is to recognise what needs to change. Leaders must gain a holistic view of their operations and outputs, and adopt accurate measurement capabilities to track their progress. They need both access to data, and visibility on how it can be applied for sustainable ends.

With the data analytics tools offered by cloud providers, businesses can access real-time insights into datacentre and regional energy consumption. This level of visibility enables  them to consider the carbon impact of where services are running, and make greener IT decisions as a result.

As part of Google Cloud’s commitment to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, we measure the carbon free energy output of each of our datacentres using the Carbon Free Energy Percentage (CFE%), and share this information with our customers.  This kind of data, often enhanced by the range of location-based and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offered by cloud providers today, allows customers to accurately measure, track and report on their gross cloud-related carbon emissions, and make more informed sustainability decisions.

To take one example, Google partner Salesforce has long leveraged CFE% data to inform its IT strategy, enabling the business to deliver its customers with a carbon-neutral cloud every day. Last year, Salesforce went one step further, integrating the Google Cloud Platform into its own carbon accounting platform. With Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, the business hopes to support its customers on their path to Net Zero, leveraging data-driven insights and visualisations to track and reduce carbon emissions, and drive sustainable change.