Google unveils list of features to help users reduce carbon footprint

Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Tech giant Google announced multiple changes on Wednesday that are designed to create a more sustainable world and reduce carbon emissions -- including a more environmentally friendly pathfinder on Google Maps.

The company said the new features are part of its larger strategy to cut back on global-warming emissions and give users more power to integrate climate efforts into their daily activities.

One of the new features, on Maps, allows users to find paths or routes that are most fuel-efficient and emit the fewest carbon emissions. Another helps users find the lowest carbon-emitting commercial airline flights.

"Eco-friendly routing is rolling out now in the U.S. ... with plans to expand to Europe and beyond in 2022," Google Maps Senior Director Russell Dicker said in a statement.

"We estimate that eco-friendly routing has the potential to prevent over one million tons of carbon emissions per year -- that's the equivalent of removing over 200,000 cars from the road."

"We need urgent and meaningful solutions to address this pressing challenge. That's why last year we committed to bold action to run our data centers and campuses on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030," added Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who noted that the strategy is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs in clean energy by 2025.

Pichai added that the company has used renewable energy sources since 2017 and will now use only clean energy to run its global centers and campuses.

As part of its "Sustainable with Google 2021" announcement, the company said it will also allow buildings like airports, shopping malls, hospitals to use DeepMind and Google Cloud -- machine-learning technology that have reduced energy at Google buildings by 30%.

The new features launched for U.S. users on Wednesday and will be available in Europe next year, the company said.

"And when people come to Google Search with questions about climate change, we'll show authoritative information from sources like the United Nations, in addition to the existing news sources that we currently raise up in the carousel," Pichai added. "It's all part of our goal to help one billion people make more sustainable choices by 2022."