Google launches app for environmentally-friendly building

Tech giant Google has announced new plans to collect and analyse data to help companies to reduce their environmental footprints.

Google’s sustainability officer Kate Brandt has evoked the tech giant’s sustainable projects, including the plan to collect and analyse data to help companies reducing their environmental footprint.

The plan is one of Google’s sustainability projects, and will enable businesses to use more sustainable materials and reduce greenhouse gases emissions.

Sustainability Officer, Kate Brandt, said during her keynote at SXSW Eco in Austin, Texas: “When we think about the Third Industrial Revolution and the role Google played in it, we also think about the Fourth Industrial Revolution where this digital backbone could transform our relationship to the material world. We would like to be a player.”

The tech giant is already the world’s largest corporate renewable energy buyer – not including utilities, having massively reduced energy usage at its data centres, as well as signed 2.5 gigawatts worth of contracts around the world in wind and solar energy, and committed to invest $2.5bn in renewable energy.

The new database, called Portico, the Healthy Materials Tool, collects data on the composition and environmental impact of building materials, and an app released last week made the data available to the public.

The app will enable easy access to data for companies aiming at LEED certifications or other green building certifications, and help them understand the material properties and potential impacts on human health of building materials.