At yesterday’s Climate Savers Computing Initiative press conference at the Googleplex, a Forbes reporter asked Google exec Urs Holzle to disclose the size of the search giant’s carbon footprint, noting that the company’s good green deeds notwithstanding, its executives still fly on private planes and so forth. (Larry Page, who had just flown in from Africa, was sitting in the front row.) Holzle, a vp for operations, rattled off a list of Google’s (GOOG) efforts to cut its greenhouse gas emissions – installing the world’s largest corporate solar array, its generous subsidies for employee purchases of hybrid cars, etc. – but declined to reveal the company’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. "Our carbon footprint is actually not that big," he said. "We have 10,000 employees. Even at this scale, we care and want to be a model citizen. But we’re not quite ready to tell you what we’re doing."
Another example of corporate hypocrisy or Google’s penchant for secrecy? Not really. Disclosing corporate carbon footprints is a tricky issue. If you’re a financial services firm or a software company, you might be quite happy to make public your greenhouse gas emissions from what is essentially office work. If you operate huge server farms around the world and are locked in cutthroat competition with the likes of Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), such disclosures are more problematic. "Our carbon footprint is too close to information that is competitive," Google energy strategist Bill Weihl told Green Wombat during a post-press conference chat. In other words, Google worries that competitors could reverse engineer its greenhouse gas data to figure out how many servers and data centers it operates – figures that the company keeps locked in a black box. Weihl says that Google has calculated its carbon footprint and has had the numbers verified by a third party. Which third party? He said he couldn’t reveal that at this time.
The Forbes reporter put the same carbon footprint question to Intel’s Pat Gelsinger, who referred to a white paper on the company’s site. While the paper details Intel’s (INTC) many technological efforts to reduce its CO2 emissions, Green Wombat could not find a snapshot of the chip giant’s overall carbon footprint.
One thing is clear, however: Pressure for companies – especially those that portray themselves as green – to reveal their greenhouse gas emissions will only grow in the years ahead. California will require such information to be disclosed for some industries to implement its statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions; a national registry is likely to follow at some point as part of Congressional global warming legislation. And being upfront about your carbon footprint will be key to effective green marketing. Figuring out how to do that while protecting competitive information will be the challenge.
Green Wombat 
Remember when Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems? Well, they were not the problem, but the dumb populace bought the lie, and the Holocaust began.
Now we have a new lie. People cause global warming. No they don’t. They cause local pollution, but that will not affect the earth’s climate. But it appears that the dumb populace will buy the lie, and this time, it will cause world-wide misery as governments begin to regulate power consumption
That’s the most ignorant comment I’ve ever heard about global warming and people who think like that are the reason humans are destroying the planet.
Hey Ted –
Check out the Great Global Warming Swindle.
The documentary is being censored in this country. The most astonishing fact is that historically CO2 levels rise hundreds of years AFTER the warming happens. Gore’s graph sneakily hides this fact. In the 70’s the earth was cooling; there were people just like you screaming about the coming “ice age” and that it was our fault, etc. etc. That’s when the world was going through a cooling phase –which will happen again after this current warming period, and again and again.
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html
Readers are invited to check their ecological footprint (for free) at http://www.myfootprint.org
Do people really think we can just continue to cunsume the Earth’s natural resources and use her as our personal playground without any affect? That is not only ignorant but scarey. For every action there is a reaction.
And I don’t understand why people think it is okay to drill holes miles long into the earth and remove oil (until we run out). Perhaps the oil is IN the Earth for a reason and should stay there?
Six million plus murdered ? regulating CO2 emissions.
As one of the most closely watched and immitated companies around, Google could do a tremendous amount of good by not only revealing ways in which they are seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, but in setting the standard.
Let’s hope they seize the moment.
I guess the Flat Earth people are still around.
For people with those beliefs, no amount of science will changed their minds.
Check: http://www.climate411.org/ for a scientific explanation that Humans are creating CO2.
So I guess we’re all suppost to go live like cavemen, quit driving, get rid of electricity, stop industry, and eat grass so Al Gore can go fly somewhere on his private jet that will burn more fuel in one trip than an average American will burn in a year so he can go complain about global warming. Yeah, I know you will all whine and complain about all of what i’m saying but its the truth. Why can’t Al fly like a normal human being or ride his bicycle. People that believe this crap are going to ruin this great country we live in and make us a third world counry. I have no problem with conserving energy. I think we should look for alternative forms of fuel. But don’t drop everything just because somebody complains that the sky is falling and we’ll all die because of carbon.