'A strong move from Google' - partners praise decision to reveal cloud emissions data

'Being able to choose your data centres based on how free they are of fossil fuels is an amazing new step,' Chris Bunch, COO of Google Cloud partner CTS tells CRN

Google partners have praised the vendor's decision to begin disclosing the carbon emissions of its individual cloud regions as it works towards completely decarbonising its datacentre electricity supply by 2030.

The move is designed to enable customers to select Google Cloud regions based on the carbon-free energy supplying them.

From today, Google customers can click here to view the ‘Carbon Free Energy Percentage' (CFE%) of most of Google Cloud's 24 regions (see map, bottom).

The GFE% is the average percentage of carbon-free energy consumed in a particular location on an hourly basis. The figure takes into account the investments Google has made in renewable energy in the location.

It varies from as low as three per cent (in the case of its asia-southeast1 region in Singapore) to as high as 89 per cent ('us-west-1' region in Oregon) - with its London region roughly in the middle at 54 per cent.

Having first achieved carbon neutrality in 2007, Google has set itself the new target of running its business on carbon-free energy 24/7 everywhere, by 2030.

'Google leading the pack in green energy'

Although it's often claimed that cloud computing is a greener alternative to on-premises, the green credentials of the major cloud vendors have been questioned in the past - with a lack of reporting and transparity singled out as a key concern.

Google currently has seven per cent of the global public cloud market, according to Canalys, trailing AWS and Azure on 32 and 20 per cent respectively.

Partners claimed that Google has the drop on its larger rivals with this latest initiative.

Chris Bunch, COO of Manchester-based Google partner CTS, said carbon emissions will become an increasingly important part of selection criteria of which cloud or clouds to use.

"This is a strong move from Google," Bunch said.

"There are a number of areas in which they're leading the pack and differentiating - and green energy is definitely one of them.

"There's often 'greenwashing' around this topic, but Google are being open and transparent with not just their target, but also their attainment towards it. Being able to choose your data centres based on how free they are of fossil fuels is an amazing new step, and I'm delighted to see this information in the public domain.

"CTS always stresses Google's green credentials when talking to potential new clients, and it's genuinely pleasing to see Google amplifying this message further and making their commitment and progress explicit to the world."

Bunch added: "I also think this will encourage both competitive and complementary (e.g. channel) organisations to think harder about their approach to climate change - and if they really can stand up and be counted on the topic."

Philip Wigg, director of recently founded Google Cloud consultancy MakeCloud, agreed:

"Giving visibility to customers of this CFE% information for Google's datacentres adds an important new dimension to consider when selecting a data entre region alongside traditional considerations such as cost and latency," he told CRN.

"The climate emergency is clearly the major challenge of our age and we will be working with our own customers to use this new information, in combination with selecting more efficient cloud-native products, to help them achieve their own decarbonisation objectives."

Google (whose Oregon datacentre is pictured, above) advised customers to pick a lower-carbon region for their new applications as well as batch jobs, but also stressed that "the cleanest energy is the energy you didn't use in the first place".

"Increasing the efficiency of your cloud applications will translate into using less energy, and often less carbon emissions," Google counselled, recommending that customers try serverless products that automatically scale with their workload.

Find out more about CRN' Tech Impact Campaign and Awards here.