Highlights
- Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are competing on sustainability offerings
- Google Earth Engine had been used by tens of thousands of researchers
- Earth Engine could help ensure supply chains are sustainable
Reuters: Alphabet Inc’s Google will tell its cloud customers the carbon emissions of their cloud usage and open satellite imagery to them for the first time for environmental analysis, as part of a push to help companies track and cut carbon budgets. The new features were among announcements Google Cloud made Tuesday (October 12) to kick off its annual customer conference, which is being held virtually this year due to the pandemic.
The leading Western cloud vendors Google, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc have been competing on sustainability offerings for years. They aim to serve companies that are under pressure from stakeholders to rethink operations in light of climate change.
Google’s new carbon footprint reporting tool, similar to one Microsoft already provides, shows the emissions associated with the electricity that was used to store and process a customer’s data. In addition, Google will now warn customers when they are wasting energy on inactive cloud services.
The new mapping offering, Google Earth Engine, had been used by tens of thousands of researchers, governments and advocacy groups since 2009. But Google now is letting businesses in on the service, which includes many huge geospatial datasets such as Landsat and the software needed to analyze them. Amazon has a similar initiative.
This is something we have now realized is applicable to a lot of these commercial opportunities, said Jen Bennett, a technical director at Google Cloud.
Earth Engine could help ensure supply chains are sustainable and predict operation challenges from extreme weather, according to Google. Unilever Plc, which tested the technology for the past 12 months, scrutinized its palm oil sources in Indonesia, though it could not be learned whether that led to any shifts in practices.
Also Read: In Climate Push, Microsoft Pledges To Be Carbon Negative, Will Erase Its Carbon Footprint Since 1975
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, that is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
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