- Environment, "green" industries charge 77 billion and employ 386 thousand people
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20 September 2019 Even the big names in technology intensify their efforts to fight climate change and, on the day of the global strike, two of them, Google and Amazon, announce important news. To do so are the 'number one' of the two companies: Sundar Pichai for Google and Jeff Bezos for Amazon. And even small American Express employees contribute to the 'green cause'.Three billion in data centers
Over the next two years, Google will invest 3 billion euros in data centers across Europe, bringing the € 15 billion invested in European internet infrastructure since 2007. This was announced by the subsidiary of Alphabet, stating that another 600 million euros will be invested in 2020 to expand the presence of data centers in Hamina, Finland, where the total invested since 2009 will reach two billion.
In a corporate post blog, CEO Sundar Pichai explained that the Hamina data center "is a significant driver of economic growth and also serves as a model of sustainability and energy efficiency for all our data centers", a key component of the cloud computing, land on which Google challenges Amazon and Microsoft.
The data centers use an enormous amount of energy, but the CEO has undertaken to minimize its environmental impact and said that half of the 1,600 Megawatts of renewable energy that Google announced to purchase ("the largest in history by of a company "), will be destined for Europe, with the launch of 10 renewable energy projects. Google will thus create new EU infrastructures with an estimated value of 1 billion euros, from five solar energy projects in Denmark to a new wind energy project off the coast of Belgium and two more in Sweden.
Zero emissions to anticipate Paris
Amazon, for its part, wants to anticipate the Paris agreements of a decade and become a "zero-emission" carbon company by 2040. Jeff Bezos's company, together with the Global Optimism association, has also invited other companies to sign "The Climate Pledge", a commitment to reduce environmental impact.
The Seattle group has decided to set a precise roadmap: power from renewable sources will have to reach 80% by 2024 and cover Amazon's entire energy needs by 2030. It is an intermediate step towards the goal final of the "carbon neutral", ie no impact on carbon emissions, by 2040.
Not only a reorganization of its plants, but a different strategy, also in terms of shareholdings and acquisitions, Amazon emphasizes, taking as a concrete example the $ 400 million investment in Rivian, a manufacturer of emission-free electric vehicles, based in Michigan . The resources of Seattle will be used to "accelerate production", also thanks to the orders of the same Amazon: 100,000 electric vans, which will begin to deliver packages in 2021. The first 10,000 will be on the road by 2022, while the entire fleet will be operational by 2030, with savings of 4 million tons of carbon emissions a year.
"We stopped being part of the problem and decided to make a difference," said Jeff Bezos. "If a company with Amazon's physical infrastructure, which delivers over 10 billion items a year, can meet the Paris agreement ten years in advance, then any company can do it."
Small gestures of civilization
Even the waste that ends up in the sea and on our beaches represents an environmental emergency. Activating voluntary initiatives is a gesture of civilization that demonstrates that each of us can act in defense of the environment: American Express Italia employees do so who, together with the Marevivo volunteers and the international Ocean Conservancy movement, take to the field to clean up a stretch of the beach at Ostia, in the Roman coast. The next appointment is September 23rd.