Google CSO Kate Brandt: ‘We need to expand how we’re talking about this’

The tech giant’s chief sustainability officer reflects on how she’ll make the most of this critical time, drawing upon the two decades she’s been working to advance sustainability, in the debut episode of Two Steps Forward, a biweekly podcast.

Plus, we answer the question: Why are creative people more optimistic?

Soon to celebrate 10 years at Google — preceded by sustainability leadership roles at the White House and Defense Department — Kate Brandt talked with my co-host Solitaire Townsend, co-founder and “chief solutionist” at Futerra, and me in a wide-ranging conversation about this moment in sustainable business and the role of technology in accelerating sustainability goals.

“I think we’re certainly facing some crosswinds, but I remain really optimistic,” she said.

Among the key opportunities she pointed out:

The role of tech — and AI

“I’ve been so privileged to sit inside of a technology company and to work on this issue for nearly a decade,” Brandt said. “And look at how far we’ve come. Look at the advances we’ve made in energy. We now have advanced nuclear, advanced geothermal, massive scaling of wind and solar. Costs have come down dramatically. So, I remain very focused, and I think we need to keep going.”

It’s not just energy tech. Not surprisingly, artificial intelligence is high on Brandt’s and her company’s agenda as a means of tackling thorny sustainability challenges. She referred to AI’s “superpowers”: synthesizing, analyzing, optimizing and predicting vast amounts of information.

One promising application she cited is in the condensation trails — “contrails” — of aircraft, which represent about 1 percent of greenhouse emissions, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

“We’ve done work with American Airlines and Breakthrough Energy to use AI to better understand why is that actually happening,” she explained. “It’s a combination of factors. It’s elevation, it’s time of day, it’s temperature. And then we did 70 test flights with American and with very small incremental AI recommended changes, really just in altitude, they were able to reduce contrails by more than half. That’s the kind of thing that’s getting me excited.”

The power of communicating more effectively

Beyond technology, Brandt said, is the key role of communicating about sustainability. “We could do a better job of not only preaching to the converted and talking to people who think in terms of CO2e — which is like a very, very small percent of people, although I love us and I’m one of them — but really talking in a much more inclusive way about why are we doing this. What’s at stake here? When we’re looking at cities and traffic lights, can we make air quality better so my neighbor’s kid with asthma can be more healthy?

“We need to expand how we’re talking about this. We need to really lean into why this is meaningful, not just for those of us who already really care about the planet and the environment but for literally every single human being. So that’s what I want to work on.”

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