Google expands water stewardship efforts; says to be water positive by 2030
Search engine technology behemoth Google has recently announced a series of new water stewardship commitments centred around its growing data centre footprint globally. The company said it would further minimize the consumption of water to lessen local impacts around communities while pledging to be water positive, or replenishing more water than it consumes, by 2030.
The company also said it would expand investments in water reuse, watershed restoration and utility infrastructure upgrades while underlining five new water stewardship commitments.
“Today, we are announcing several water stewardship commitments as a promise to responsibly manage vital water resources where we build and operate data centers. Our goal is to minimize our local impacts so that our growth does not come at the expense of the communities we call home. We’re also announcing new water stewardship initiatives and evaluating projects through Google’s water replenishment Request for Information (RFI)”, the company wrote in a recent blog.
Water is a critical component of data center development and operations. Because data centers generate heat from the servers and chips that power the digital world, they often rely on water to cut back on energy use for cooling. In many places, water cooling can reduce data center energy use by approximately 10 per cent compared to air cooling. The aggregate water consumption of data centers is small — US data centers use less than one per cent of the water that Americans use on their lawns annually – but Google said it was focused on protecting local water resources in all aspects of its data center operations.
The company’s new water stewardship commitments include replenishing more water than it consumes at our sites by 2030; helping modernize water and wastewater infrastructure for its neighbors; protect at-risk watersheds with air-cooled solutions; report its annual water use transparently and pursue alternative and reclaimed solutions to protect water resources.
“By investing in replenishment projects, we can help improve water security for everyone. In 2025, we replenished more than 7 billion gallons (roughly equivalent to the annual water usage of 70,000 average US households). And, today, we have 165 water stewardship projects across 97 watersheds. Once these projects are fully implemented, they are expected to replenish more than 19 billion gallons of water annually by 2030, more than double our 2024 consumption (enough water to supply the entire city of Los Angeles for more than 40 days). The majority of these projects not only deliver volumetric benefits, but also help improve broader watershed health challenges such as water quality”, the company blog said.
On modernizing water and wastewater infrastructure, the company said, “water utilities are often underfunded. By working with our utility partners, we are helping update public water infrastructure so that our neighbors have reliable, affordable water sources both today and in the future. In addition to paying for the water we use, to date Google has committed over $500 million to the development of water, wastewater and water reuse infrastructure and to the utility partners that deliver water in the communities where we operate/build data centers. This includes projects ranging from enhancing local water supplies to detecting leaky pipes. We’re committed to continuing to help local utilities update their infrastructure”.
To further its replenishment goals, the company said it also evaluating more than 700 projects submitted through its recent Water Replenishment Projects RFI. These projects include engineered solutions to improve water efficiency, supply or quality; farm-level practices to reduce agricultural water demand and improve soil health; and nature-based solutions aimed at improving the hydrologic cycle.
