4 April, 2024

E176 – Leah Kaplan, APAC Sustainability Business Lead at Google Cloud 

Our guest this week is Leah Kaplan, APAC Sustainability Business Lead at Google Cloud. Leah’s passion for sustainability stems from her deep love of nature. Leah held a number of consulting technology roles before her dream job came up at Google Cloud – where she now sits at the nexus of technology and sustainability. 

Sustainability has been a core value at Google for 25 years who are looking to minimise their impact on the planet while helping others to do the same. In 2007, Google became the first major company to become carbon neutral. In 2017 Google was the first company to achieve a 100% renewable energy match – this means purchasing renewable energy that covers all energy usage for all of Google which they’ve done every year since. Google has data centres running 24/7 solely on carbon free energy. One of their key goals by 2030 is to have every data centre around the world run on carbon free energy. Google is forecast to spend $10B on renewable energy this year alone! 

As  the whole world struggles with climate change, how do businesses begin to understand the impact climate change is going to have on them in the future? Leah’s role as Sustainability Business Lead for APAC at Google is fascinating and impactful, with an emphasis on encouraging and helping corporate customers to achieve their sustainability goals via the Google Cloud platform. There are myriad sustainability areas to focus on – not just gas emissions. These include water stewardship, waste reduction, circulatory in products, optimisation – all areas that technology can help with – particularly AI. 

One of the pressures Leah observes with the customers she engages with is that many of those in younger generations are willing to pay more for products that are sustainably sourced and will show loyalty to brands that have a sustainability mission. Leah helps companies tackle these challenges by working with them to assess a measurement framework and benchmark, help them to become compliant against regulation, assist companies to make data-driven critical business decisions, guide them in optimising with what they do have, and help to seek out aligned sustainability growth opportunities. She also emphasises that companies with strong sustainability initiatives attract top talent.

This hugely educational and fascinating discussion covers so much more… take a listen.

Quickfire Round:
Book: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen and Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Podcast: The Energy Gang and Stuff You Should Know 
News Source: The Guardian 
Productivity Tool: Calendar and Kanban Board 
CEO: Melanie Perkins, Canva 
App: Signal 
TV Show: The Wire 
TEDTalk Topic: Geospatial analytics and its impact on sustainability

Interested in learning more about how Google Cloud can assist you to reach sustainability goals? Head to Google Cloud’s website, sign up for free and receive $300 in credit, or reach out to your Google rep or Innovation Bay who will put you in touch.