Centralizing systems to support Google's 2030 sustainability goals

Google’s corporate real-estate organization (REWS) is committed to meeting ambitious climate action goals and needed a way to operationalize reporting. Workshop stewarded discovery and design for a centralized reporting system that not only tracks metrics but also supports actionable insights and cross-functional accountability.

• Qualitative research: Conducted input sessions with internal stakeholders to understand challenges and opportunities.
• Cross-functional core team: Helped charter and structure a cross-functional core team, creating both a central hub for coordination and the structures for productive team culture.
• Stakeholder workshops: Organized workshops with stakeholder groups to build alignment and engage in co-design.
• Tech strategy: Assisted client partners in evaluating technology pathways and stewarding system integration.
• Rollout and adoption: Supporting launch planning with a change management strategy and internal communications kit.
• Continuous iteration: After launch, we’re committed to refining the system and expanding it to support additional sustainability metrics.

As one of the leading tech companies in the world, Google is determined to be at the forefront of sustainable business practices. Google views its internal real-estate organization (REWS) as a key strategy to meet sustainability goals. To track toward goals, REWS needed to develop a centralized system to monitor metrics, improve data reliability, and support collaboration across multiple departments.

Discovery & Research

• Conducted input sessions with REWS teams — food, transportation, health, and facilities — to map current activities and metrics
• Built a full inventory of sustainability activities and how each team was tracking progress

Mapping & Roadmap Design

• Designed a five-year roadmap to 2030, broken down by domain: biodiversity, carbon, water, and waste
• Connected operational activities to sub-metrics and 2030 outcomes, surfacing gaps in what teams were tracking

Systems Translation

• Translated subject matter expertise into clear business requirements for the software development team
• Acted as the link between REWS teams and the engineers building the automated reporting platform

Cross-Functional Alignment

• Structured a cross-functional core team to create a central coordination hub with clear accountability
• Facilitated workshops to build alignment across departments and engage teams in co-design

• Established a centralized sustainability reporting framework that created greater consistency, transparency, and confidence across environmental data related to carbon, water, waste, circularity, and biodiversity.
• Moved teams away from fragmented spreadsheets and manual processes toward a more streamlined and accessible reporting system, improving participation and making sustainability data easier to manage, access, and share across teams.
• Enabled leadership to make more informed decisions with greater trust in the underlying data, while creating a clearer cadence for reporting progress toward Google’s 2030 sustainability goals.
• Supported more effective long-term planning by helping teams define annual pathways toward sustainability targets and identify opportunities for course correction and performance improvement over time.