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Can Google prove that it's carbon offsets really work?
74 Plays2 months ago
This week Amy, Anthony, Mike, and Karthik tackle the thorny issue of carbon credits, offsets, and insets as big tech companies like Google and Amazon seek to make changes in how emissions are calculated. Will consumers grow even more distrustful of big tech? And how can we regulate a complex system in a way that appeals to consumers?
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Transcript
Introduction to Innovation Matters
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Innovation Matters. It's the Sustainable Innovation Podcast brought to you by Lux Research. I'm your host, Anthony Schiavo, a senior director here at Lux Research. I have ah my colleagues with me, Karthik Subramanian. I have Mike Holman, and I have Amy Harris.
Sustainable Innovation Focus
00:00:27
Speaker
We're the podcast that's rewriting the rules about sustainable innovation. Just like Google, rewriting the rules of carbon tech credits and offsets and possibly insets, whatever the heck those are. um I hope you like weird legalistic financial term instruments because I think that's what we're going to be talking about a fair bit today. um Before we get into that, how is everyone doing?
Weather Anecdotes
00:00:53
Speaker
No complaints. It's actually unseasonably cold here in New York, I guess in Boston also. It's so nice. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for a run. I just went for I'm not happy about this. It's cold here too, and it feels like the fall is coming too quickly. You don't want the a fall to be run. here? No. I'm fall-pilled. I've got my sweater picked out. I'm ready to rock. I think my wife is with Amy on this one. She's also a Canadian and grew up in Minnesota, and she just
00:01:43
Speaker
Fall is nice, but it just that you know it's just the harbinger of the winter that is going to be terrible. So it's hard to enjoy it for that reason. ah At least I can see that the sun is shining on Anthony, or it looks like it. So Anthony seems to be pretty happy.
00:02:01
Speaker
Got my window open. Sun is shining. Birds are chirping. They were going nuts at like five in the morning. Um, yeah, but it's, it's, it's been good. How's the weather in Amsterdam? Is it still nice or has it already gotten gross and degraded? Um, mid 20 degrees Celsius. Uh, the same, um, slightly windier than before. So, you know, there's a good breeze. So feels nicer than last week. Yeah.
00:02:29
Speaker
But it still feels like, you know, in Amsterdam, the summer wants to go longer than, you know, it's supposed to, because the fall has still not set in. And I think the forecast still says that it's going to be like mid twenties for another one and a half, two weeks. How is fall in Amsterdam? Does it get gross quickly or what? Uh,
00:02:49
Speaker
typically starts to get slightly colder, windier and rainier, but it also tends to rain a lot in the Netherlands. So it's very hard to say, you know, so it's the summer where you have the sun for like three months and then just rain, you know, that's it. It's just rain for the rest of the year. So there is no specific autumn weather per se. yeah All
Big Tech's Net-Zero Goals
00:03:06
Speaker
right. Well, Karthik, you wanted to flag this up. um There's an interesting story, I think, published in the FT and covered in a couple of different outlets about kind of some of the pivots that we're seeing with regards to carbon credits and what you know some big companies, especially big tech companies are doing, because the big tech companies have been the biggest buyers, I think, of these these credits up until this point.
00:03:32
Speaker
especially the very high quality, very high price credits. um But it seems like that's beginning to change. So what what's going on with with all this? Yeah, so um this article is also published on the MIT Technology Review. And it's kind of talking about how these large companies like Google and Amazon were talking about becoming net zero by 2030. If I'm not mistaken, I think Google had this ah target where they want to ah procure green electricity ah completely by 2030 to run their operations. And this has of course raised a lot of skepticism, especially among consumers that all these companies are just finding ways to quickly become net zero rather than actually doing something about it.
00:04:26
Speaker
And the best way to do that is, of course, through creative financial accounting of carbon credits. So you end up showing on paper that you're working on schemes that help you offset your carbon ah you know emissions, or you're actually developing projects that do have some impact on carbon credits, but you end up overstating those um gains.
00:04:49
Speaker
So you show on paper that the carbon and offset that you're actually um achieving from the scheme that you've adopted is actually much greater than what it really is.
Google's Carbon Strategies
00:05:01
Speaker
And so one of the ways I think ah Google is also trying to move away from this kind of negative skepticism and greenwashing image that they're posing on consumers ah is that they're starting to also look at things like ah carbon inset, which is where they start actually implementing projects within their own supply chain.
00:05:25
Speaker
to reduce their carbon emissions rather than rely on an external party to focus on reducing carbon emissions on their behalf. Or they're also looking at, for example, business models like the Clean Transition Tariff, which we spoke about, I believe, a few podcast episodes ago, where ah they want to actually pay a premium to developers to develop um low carbon power generation projects that have yet to scale the value of death. So they ah they do come at a premium. These companies acknowledge they come at a premium, but they say we are willing to pay that premium to help those technologies scale up and then pass the costs down to the consumers only at a later date.
00:06:03
Speaker
So it's kind of a win-win for everyone, right? The large companies are able to ah procure low carbon power. And at the same time, once these technologies scale up, ah utilities can then you know use those assets that are operational to reduce their carbon emissions for their retail customers.
Renewable Energy Credits Debate
00:06:20
Speaker
Mike, you know you're our Twitter beef correspondent. white I thought that was you. yeah No, but let's be honest here. I'm the beef creator. I think you're the beef reporter. um Fair enough. You know, when it comes to most likely to have online beefs, um I definitely hope you're you're more of a LinkedIn beef guy. I'm more of a LinkedIn beef. the The retired chemical engineers on LinkedIn are like in my mentions these days. It's it's a little bit wild. But you, I think, had more fully parsed the sort of Twitter thread that was going back and forth with Jigar Shah, the
00:06:57
Speaker
head of the U.S. DOE Loan Program Office. There was some controversy about this decision or about this, and what what what what was he sort of, how was he positioning these changes? Yeah, I think there's, I mean, what he's getting into and what a lot of, I think, the discussion around this has been, and this is Tigger Shaw, who runs the runs the Loan Program Office for the for the Department of of energy um and has been been very involved in you know clean energy areas.
00:07:29
Speaker
um But I think that you know the the debate here and and is around what's the most effective way to kind of create the right incentives for for investment in the energy transition. And you know there's an argument that at least at some times or at some point, it made sense to allow people to to use you know kind of freely these renewable energy credits because it did create an incentive for um for investment in ah in renewables and in particular to improve the bankability of renewables. The um challenge with ah financing a solar facility or wind installation is that you um you know the bank
00:08:22
Speaker
to provide the loans for these wants to have some confidence that these these facilities are going to ah be able to have a steady, predictable revenue stream over the course of their 20-year lifetime.
00:08:36
Speaker
and ah That's a bit hard to do with electricity prices being volatile and so on and you know production being uncertain But ah in cases where these big IT players in particular or other people interested in these these renewable energy credits We're willing to step in and sign power purchase agreements and say we're gonna build all this we're gonna buy all of this power um that this that the solar farm ah or wind farm produces and that made those projects bankable. It enabled them to get the financing and it enabled them to to get built.
Renewable Energy Practices and Costs
00:09:10
Speaker
And the reason that they were willing to do that is because they could reuse the renewable energy credits, right? And and to offset the the energy use of of their data centers. what What is it? I'm still a little fuzzy on the reusing the credits part and exactly what that means. Yeah, so not reusing, just use it. I mean, that they could essentially yeah
00:09:32
Speaker
add up the amount of energy that they're paying for from solar facilities and add up the total energy that's being consumed by their data centers and say, OK, these things offset, right? We used you know a gigawatt hour of electricity, and we bought a gigawatt hour of electricity, even though, as Karthik was saying, like but when that actual gigawatt hour of of clean energy was produced may have had and where it was produced may have had nothing at all to do with when or where the electricity was actually used. OK.
00:10:03
Speaker
um And I think you know that's a that's a fair argument, but I think you know we're getting to the point now, while you know financing renewable projects, I don't want to ah obscure the point, financing renewable projects and getting getting the financing for them is still challenging.
00:10:18
Speaker
um we really What we really do need to incentivize investment in is not just renewables on the grid, but actually you know renewables and and grid upgrades and storage and all all the rest that that enables us to actually provide um you know clean power when when it's needed and to to to really be able to to up the the penetration and the the the adoption of renewables. so it's a bit like you know we talked to also and a couple months ago, now about the 45V tax credits for green hydrogen. And the three pillars there were um simultaneity or hourly matching, incrementality, and deliverability. And basically what Google is is arguing for here or saying that they're doing is they want to do hourly matching and they want to do deliverability. They're they're not talking as much about
00:11:16
Speaker
the incrementality part, but you know that they want the electricity to be produced on the same grid as as it's being used and at the same time as it's being used to to really kind of count for these for these offsets.
00:11:32
Speaker
And if I may add, I think that comes from the challenges generally with PPAs, because I think the power purchase agreements of the PPAs, they consider long duration payments. So if you have a PPA with a solar farm, then you may be paying them every quarter or every you know six months or a year.
00:11:49
Speaker
So you just say, okay, I consumed X amount of power in this entire year, and I'm going to pay for that X amount. And that accounts you know for low carbon power that I have consumed. And therefore, my carbon emissions are lower for power that I have used. But in reality, ah it's not necessary that, as as to Mike's point, you know that the solar farm actually produced power when it was used.
00:12:15
Speaker
um So you may be taking power from different sources and there was another source that contributed to your energy consumption at one specific point in time and that could be a coal plant. So there are still some carbon emissions associated with that that you're not accounting for.
00:12:29
Speaker
when you are signing the PPA, which is why they want to change it and make it more hourly matching. And I think that also adds to the kind of how the spot prices market works kind of a thing in the wholesale regimen, if you think about it, because then yeah you can try to optimize which low carbon sources is producing power and then pay the least possible amount of electricity. So there's also a financial incentive to it. I guess that's kind of what I was curious about, because this seems pretty obvious or pretty like uncontroversial in a certain way. like Yeah, we should be moving towards a system where you actually have the electricity on the grid, you know, that you want or whatever, right?
00:13:08
Speaker
um
00:13:10
Speaker
why Why is this like controversial or why is this like? Well, because it's more expensive. Yeah. ah right that's that's ah That's essentially why. And, yeah you know, at the same time, it like it's ah Again, there's that argument and this is what I think ah from the FT article in particular, um Microsoft and I believe it is Amazon were we're arguing um that you know if you if you make it too expensive for a company, if you insist on these requirements, and these companies are just not it's it's going to be too expensive and these companies are just not going to invest as much.
00:13:48
Speaker
and renewable energy if as they would if they could you know kind of use the credits willy-nally the way they have been. And again, I think it's a colorable argument, but I think it was a lot better argument like five or 10 years ago than it than it is now. I think that, um you know, these but andtiqu we've we've also talked about on here in the past, right? These these companies are kind of doing decarbonization on easy mode.
00:14:14
Speaker
right? as As much as there's this fretting about AI energy consumption, and it would have to go down that whole path again. you know these companies b be it The energy intensity of these companies revenues is much lower than it is for like a chemicals company or a steel company or something, any manufacturing company. So they effectively do have a lot more money um ah you know per kilowatt hour to to invest in in decarbonization without really hurting their profits. In Luykin-Lux language, they have an extremely high critical carbon price on the on the carbon canvas method we use. um and so If we can kind of turn that spigot of money, um that fire hose of ah of money towards more you know like what people call clean firm power, right power that can actually be delivered at any time or delivered when it's
00:15:07
Speaker
when it's needed, um that's, I think, one of the the bigger pain point on on the grid and in the energy transition for the grid right now. And so this is very good for our are like geothermal type technologies, right? i Yeah, for geothermal, for nuclear, for energy storage. I mean, there's a lot of ways to get at it. but yeah And not to mention backup power sources like fuel cells, perhaps, that are frequently overlooked. Yeah.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I think Google's, the the the pilot of this, again, it was on the podcast before, but the clean transition tariff that they're, this this financial structure that they've set up with a utility in Nevada, I think it is that. Buke energy. Yeah, that allows them to to to so you know just pay a special rate that helps specifically to to finance the construction of it was an enhanced geothermal project for this for this kind of clean, firm power.
00:16:05
Speaker
and And I think maybe this skepticism of the controversy comes from the fact that consumers don't expect the companies to be transparent enough, you know, about the hourly matching or about the financials and how money is flowing around.
Consumer Skepticism on Offsetting
00:16:21
Speaker
And maybe that also again leads to the whole thing of oh this is greenwashing all over again. and And I think Amy, you've also been seeing those kinds of trends when these news, these types of news articles come up, right?
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think consumers we've we've seen are increasingly skeptical of carbon offsetting, and they do associate it with greenwashing. There's this the sense that really carbon offsets work to kind of hide emissions and allow companies to claim that their products or their practices are eco-friendly without actually like taking concrete steps to reduce or prevent emissions in the first place. and so um there's There's a lot of mistrust because it's easy to to throw around the label carbon neutral or or we're going to reach these net zero ah goals, um but consumers don't necessarily know what that means in practice, like what's what's actually happening. And I think um ah maybe one like concrete example
00:17:24
Speaker
of confusion is when but consumers are checking out on a website and they are prompted with an um the option to offset their the carbon footprint of their shipping. And they can pay extra money to offset it. um But there's usually no explanation of like how does this what what's happening with this money. How does this money actually offset the carbon that's being emitted?
00:17:51
Speaker
ah during the shipping process um and so a lot of people prefer not not to pay because they're not sure where that money is actually going and um what what concrete impact it will have and so we see there they're they're really more focused on reduction and this is something that consumers can kind of taken to their own hands. um So we're seeing them prefer to to buy local. So if you're if you're buying your groceries from a local farmer's market, you know that it hasn't the food hasn't been imported. And so the the the shipping emissions are
00:18:24
Speaker
are lower by default. Looking for goods that are produced or manufactured in the US or in in their local communities is um another way. Or looking for companies that will actually do deliveries um with um electric vehicles or by bike. There's like, you know, flower shops that will deliver by bike instead of by car. And I know these are all kind of small, very small um actions, but that this is how consumers interact with these companies on a day-to-day basis. And so it's about thinking about like, how how are my individual actions actually going to help? um And so I think that leads to kind of greater skepticism. Sorry.
00:19:08
Speaker
How do I say that skepticism? what this isn um About some of these brands that make these large claims because when you see even just a very small aspect of the process, like shipping is is so confusing and unclear and there seems to be greenwashing happening even with that, um it's hard for them to trust and to really understand. like and we're We're not seeing consumers really talk about the 24-7 carbon matching um because I don't think that's really on their radar in terms of understanding The math behind things, even that math is not really presented to consumers when yeah you're interacting with brands on their websites or, you know, reading about products. And so all of that's kind of happening behind the curtain. And um because of that, there's a lot of like confusion and mistrust.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, and specifically that sort of thing at the check because i I've just like when I use UPS to ship something, you know, I'll go on and see what on the website, there's a little box that pops up and it's like it's a $10 shipment or something. Would you like to pay three cents more to offset the carbon emissions from the shipping? It's like, OK, sure, I will. But I don't really believe that that that's necessarily going to something that's that impactful. And I think consumers in general, right, I mean, they've they've you see this, I don't know if you see this in the conversation, but I imagine they've they've seen these stories about how some of these carbon projects, especially, you know, offset projects, especially like the the forest ones and stuff like that
Holistic Sustainability Approaches
00:20:39
Speaker
is, you know, have proved to be kind of BS. And that's what's coloring their perception of this, in addition to that kind of general distrust of, you know, maybe big business that they might have.
00:20:52
Speaker
Exactly. And I think like, although we're not seeing conversations around around the the time, the 24 seven carbon matching in terms of time, we are seeing conversations around the timeline of these offsetting projects, because a lot of companies will claim or promise that they're going to plant trees. And this is kind of like a future promise, like in the future, there will be more trees that will offset the carbon. But right now you can't what will continue to to admit. And so they don't really, I guess there's um They're not sure if really these like promises for the future really actually make up for the emissions today. um And it's not necessarily that they're against like tree planting because they obviously see that as something that the beneficial reforestation projects are are important, but um they don't want that to be the only thing a company is doing. And so it's they they really want to see a more holistic approach. So with like a clothing company, for example,
00:21:47
Speaker
Yes, maybe planting trees is a is like a ah bonus, something they think is great that they're doing, but they want to see that they're using recycled materials, that they're using um biodegradable packaging, that they're reselling um clothes secondhand, but all of these initiatives. So for consumers, I think it's really a focus on a more holistic approach to sustainability, not just offsetting the carbon, but seeing how a company is taking steps to um reduce pollution, reduce emissions at various stages of the the process, I guess.
00:22:29
Speaker
Amy, what's your view? Because, you know, a lot of this, there's these things that consumers sort of like or are drawn to, like the local farms. Right. And they tend to be very tangible and sort of near to the consumer, but they're not always necessarily like the most impactful things. And then you have sort of these very sort of abstract, like macro level.
00:22:50
Speaker
um initiatives by companies which are cool or like maybe they're more impactful if they work on like net total carbon emissions overall, but like they're very sort of abstracted away from the consumer. Do you think something like carbon insetting, which maybe we should explain what that is ah because I'm still mostly, I think I get it now, but um do you think something like that, which is basically this idea of we're going to do carbon offsetting, but in our own supply chain. So if we're buying
00:23:25
Speaker
you know, food from a farm, we're going to pay that farm to do some enhanced soil technology type type situation. Do you think that that type of um insetting is maybe more real to consumers?
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, I imagine it would be, and I don't think it's a term that people are totally familiar with yet, even amongst ourselves where we're still thinking about what incest means. But um I think um there's definitely an opportunity for corporations to educate consumers about this, to start using that language and to start explaining how that these um mash these measures are making a a more tangible and concrete impact. and um Because I think when consumers hear something like, you know are um our stores are run on all um green energy, but the reality is that they're they're actually not being run.
00:24:21
Speaker
in practice on green energy, rather their the company, the corporation is just supporting or buying green energy from other sources, but not actually using them in the the the actual stores. That's where we we start to see distrust. And so I think if we can if they can they can show how the energy they're actually using is being sourced so sustainably, or the products that they're actually producing are using sustainable um materials that are low carbon, I think this will go a long way or for consumer trust.
Google's Packaging Initiative
00:24:56
Speaker
So like the messaging of like this was produced on a farm where you know where we're doing carbon sequestration right is like a lot more resonant than like we bought a bunch of carbon offsets. Right. Yeah.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's a bit like, I mean, another topic um we've we've chatted about is is mass balance for plastic recycling, right? And you know you can go through a whole reasoning of, yeah, look, this helps to but provide a financial incentive that ah the or financial reward that aligns the incentives of of chemical producers and and things. but this you know, you explain how it actually a consumer or normal person hears about how it actually works. And like, this sounds like total BS, you know, this free attribution of material recycled material content across different refinery outputs are in the same way that I think if you describe this, it's like, oh, you know, Google's offsetting or Microsoft is
00:25:55
Speaker
offsetting offsetting electricity that they're using at night in California with energy that they bought from you know ah a solar farm in Texas during the day or something like that. just It just seems like they're pulling a fast one. Exactly. I guess the the one thing for sure is that Anthony is not buying a Pixel 9 anytime soon.
00:26:17
Speaker
I mean, if you change your logo or your motto from don't be evil to literally anything else, it's a significant type of trust situation that has just occurred there. I'm going to be honest with you. But Google is... Evil's okay sometimes. It's not really resonating with me as a consumer. I'm sorry.
00:26:42
Speaker
The um I mean, despite the the the dodgy slogan change, maybe I mean, Google is the player in this that is actually pushing for the more, ah you know, kind of ah stringent and more, you know, I think, you know, energy transition sound sort of practices and in more of this this 24 seven matching and, you know, it's some of the other players that want to, you know, kind of offset willy nilly.
00:27:07
Speaker
I mean Google also has a plastic free packaging which is interesting. i Maybe I'm not fully up to speed on it, but I don't know. As a guy, as a plastics guy, maybe um maybe I'm a little skeptical of plastic free packaging as ah as a goal.
00:27:26
Speaker
I mean, for consumer electronics or something like that. I think for consumer electronics it actually makes a ton of sense. You don't have to worry about perishability either way. I'm fine with the plastic-free packaging for my mobile phone or my whatever, but I don't know about plastic-free packaging for my ground beef or something. Yeah, my mobile phone has gone off. It's developed an off aroma as a result of spending too long in shipping. You hate to see it, obviously.
00:27:54
Speaker
um But ah maybe one thing I also wanted to add was something that came up ah in another outlet, which was kind of related to this, but not exactly. But it's sort of on large monopolies in utilities and how you know large companies, they want to buy electricity. They have to go to these utilities, but they're actually not sure where the electricity is coming from these utilities.
00:28:20
Speaker
And so then the question becomes, are regulations stringent enough and pushing them to decarbonize their own portfolio and invest in new projects? And companies like Duke Energy, for example, came up with this. ah They are, of course, part of the green transition tariff, the the clean tariff from um Google. But even in North Carolina, I think they had a um um a regulation passed that said now they will allow some of the large customers to pay Duke to build these extra projects because they felt Duke wasn't doing anything on its own.
00:28:57
Speaker
um And so that's quite interesting as well.
00:29:02
Speaker
because the these large companies felt that they cannot trust these utilities to build these projects on their behalf. And so they can't claim ownership of that project and say, yes, this is where we are getting electricity from, the solar farm is ours. And so we can't do creative accounting ourselves, but we are forced to do creative accounting to show we are actually doing something good when in reality we are not. Yeah, I think the, the like,
00:29:32
Speaker
I guess what I would say is I'm very sort of sympathetic to the need for creative accounting, right? Like these are big complex systems and this is something I've been thinking a lot in the context of plastic waste, right? Where there's this desire or this this goal of bringing things down to a kind of consumer level, like in Europe and in other certain parts of America, we have consumer like product targets. So like, oh, you need a section such level of of content in your your product, right?
00:30:13
Speaker
And it's kind of just a bad way of regulating the system. Like this is a complex system and we should have, you know, we should just have system level regulations, right? um Things like waste capture, recycling rates, total waste generation, you know, percentage of waste that's leaked, right? Carbon footprint. These are the things that really matter for the system overall. But that sort of necessarily requires like,
00:30:44
Speaker
a a lot of complex systems-level accounting in ways that aren't super like obvious or transparent to lay people. But that's just what's right for the system. You know what I mean? like that's just sort of like That's the thing that's most real, that's most practical.
00:31:05
Speaker
and so yeah it's just like Like there's this desire to like, cause people are like mad and like they want to see change and like, I get that. Um, but it's just, it's not always really what's right for the system. And so I worry or like, I wonder like, yeah, just where, how we're going to like be able to move forward productively given these challenges. It seems really difficult.
00:31:37
Speaker
If creative accounting is like considered the norm and kind of necessary, doesn't that de-incentivize real change or making more drastic changes that are that are needed? um And like change is painful, and it's it's not always easy. and But I think like f it's if the only changes we're making are on paper, then are they really changes? And like are we actually moving moving the needle?
00:32:07
Speaker
i mean I think there's a difference between changes on paper and creative accounting. like If the accounting doesn't relate to anything actually happening in the real world, that's definitely bad. right But like there's nothing per se wrong about the purchase of electricity, green electricity, in a different time and place, as long as it accomplishes the goal of getting us to 100% clean grid. And I think you can make the argument that that type of system is no longer, no longer has utility in moving us towards a green grid. And like, that's a, like I said, that's a colorable argument, might kind of touched on that earlier. But like, there's, there's nothing just because it's like, weird to consumers, like that doesn't, you know,
00:32:57
Speaker
like the The point is, does it drive lower carbon emissions? And if it does, like if mass balance was super effective at driving increased recycling rates, then I think it would be sick. The problem with mass balance is both that it's insanely weird to consumers and they hate it.
00:33:12
Speaker
and also that it doesn't actually drive recycling rates. right it It is the kind of creative accounting that allows companies to dramatically overstate what they're actually accomplishing. right so like That's the problem with it, in my view. Yeah, it's got to create the right real world. and These changes on paper have to create the right real world incentives. like when i you know write a star next to my son's name on a piece of paper I have tacked on the wall. That's just a change on paper. But if it it incentivizes him to like actually pee in the potty, ah you know then it's but it's but it's a good thing. And this is kind of the kind of the analogy here.
00:33:55
Speaker
yeah To that point, I was just thinking maybe we are viewing the energy transition
Energy Transition Goals
00:34:01
Speaker
wrongly to an extent. i I think we are looking at it as this one big black box and we are supposed to do something drastic, something really quickly and and both have to happen at the same time for us to s see real change. Maybe that's an unrealistic expectation to have and all these large companies should also start compartmentalizing their short term and their long term goals and I'm sure they do it really well but i I think the real challenge is in implementation and execution and so I guess those small steps could maybe also be a good way to also tell the consumers we really care.
00:34:36
Speaker
and But it's going to take time and we acknowledge it's going to take time, but and but we don't want to overstate what we're doing. We know we want to get there, but we're going to have a more realistic approach rather than try to do creative accounting or or state something or announce a project that's too unrealistic and too good to be true.
00:34:55
Speaker
I think that's what Google is moving towards, right? They're saying it's not how fast we get there. It's about how we get there. And we're going to try to take some concrete steps. I mean, it is kind of about how fast they get there, though. I mean, we are an urgent... it It is a little bit urgent, right?
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's what the there is, though, right in this case. I mean, I think the the the argument for the Google approach would be that, you know, it may be and in some way like the total number of solar farms is is is not as large as they'd invest in otherwise, but the things that they are investing in are the things that are more that are going like these clean firm power sources are the ones that are actually going to do more to to totally to to reduce the actual total emissions on the grid.
00:35:42
Speaker
um I don't know if that's the that's the case, but I think that as a general point, like that's you know those are the things that we should be focusing on ah trying to incentivize right now.
00:36:00
Speaker
I'm trying to incentivize Google to like launch a spam filter that actually works, brother. Because my inbox situation, it's it's not good. It's dire. And it's just been getting worse and worse over the years. like It's honestly ridiculous.
00:36:20
Speaker
um So Google, if you're listening, all of you, all however many people work there, just make your inbox work. This doesn't seem that difficult. mike Please.
00:36:35
Speaker
That's the short term goal to start with rather than create. Yeah, honestly, honestly. All right. That's a podcast. I thought you were going to end it with a, if you like, share, subscribe. I'm going to do that. You guys did ah a pretty medium job of pitching the podcast last time. I got to tell you, I left all that in. I forgot what else i to say. like What else did you say? That's in there. I left that in there. I thought that was funny. I cut out the other stuff. okay um But I left that in there. So let me just do a really professional little little ad read here.
00:37:09
Speaker
um Stand back and watch. Stand back and watch. them at Watch the master at work. If you like this podcast, for whatever reason, you can support us. And it's so easy. It's so simple. All you have to do is like the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, give us a five star rating on your favorite podcasting app, including but not limited to Spotify, Apple podcasts,
00:37:35
Speaker
and many, many others. We do appreciate it. It does help us out. And I am confident that with the the quality of this this read, the people of the land will be rushing, rushing to to do just that. So thank you. We'll be back next time. um If Google ever fixes their stupid email, you'll hear about it. um But don't hold your breath.
00:38:00
Speaker
Innovation Matters is a production of Lux Research, the leading sustainable innovation research and advisory firm. You can follow this podcast on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want more, check out www.luxresearchinc dot.com slash blog for all of the latest news, opinions, and articles. so