California-based tech company Google announced today that starting in 2017, all of their data centers and offices will be powered entirely by renewable energy.
Though it’s taken 5 years to work out the negotiations for the energy goal set in 2012, their offices of over 60,000 staff will go from using 40% clean energy to 100%. Executives say that they will primarily draw from wind farms and solar panels, but they have not yet ruled out investing in nuclear energy should it meet their safety and efficiency standards.
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Representatives say that not only are they going green because it’s their environmental responsibility, but renewables are also more cost-effective. Not to mention investing in sustainable energy could help make it cheaper than fossil fuel in the future.
“We are convinced this is good for business, this is not about greenwashing. This is about locking in prices for us in the long term. Increasingly, renewable energy is the lowest cost option,” said Marc Oman, EU energy lead at Google. “Our founders are convinced climate change is a real, immediate threat, so we have to do our part.”
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