(Credit: Pixabay)As part of a $10 billion debt offering, Google’s parent company Alphabet has issued $5.75 billion in sustainability bonds, the largest sustainability or green bond by any company in history. Although a number of companies have issued green bonds (directed solely to environmental uses), sustainability bonds differ in that their proceeds support investment in both environmental and social initiatives. Such bonds are an emerging asset class and Google is hoping this transaction will help develop this new market. According to Alphabet, there was strong demand for these bonds from investors — they were significantly oversubscribed.
The proceeds from these sustainability bonds will fund ongoing and new projects that are environmentally or socially responsible and enable investors to join the company in tackling critical issues. We believe that these investments benefit our communities, employees and stakeholders, and are an important part of fulfilling Google’s mission and goal of creating value over the long term.
The company will use the proceeds for the following projects, among others:
For more than a decade, Alphabet worked to make Google data centers some of the most efficient in the world by optimizing use of energy, water, and materials. Today, on average, a Google data center is twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center. Compared with five years ago, we now deliver around seven times as much computing power with the same amount of electricity.
To date, Alphabet has committed approximately $4 billion to purchase clean energy from more than 50 wind and solar projects globally through 2034. Next, the company will focus on longer-term vision to source carbon-free energy for operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week; this means matching the company’s energy consumption with clean energy for each of its data centers around the world on an hour-by-hour basis. As for green buildings, more than 13 million square feet of Google offices are currently LEED certified.
Google is working to mitigate carbon emissions and take cars off the road by promoting the use of EVs and bicycles. By using Google shuttles in the Bay Area, the company has saved 40,000+ metric tons of CO2 emissions.
Google said it is committed to maximizing the reuse of finite resources across operations, products, and supply chains and to enable others to do the same. To date, the company has shipped millions of devices made with post-consumer recycled plastic and 100% of Nest products launched in 2019 include recycled plastics.
