Chief Sustainability Officer at Google
Mountain View, California, United States
232K followers
500+ connections
About
Kate Brandt serves as Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer and leads sustainability across Google’s worldwide operations, products and supply chains. In this role, Kate partners with Google’s data centers, real estate, supply chain, and product teams to ensure the company is capitalizing on opportunities to strategically advance sustainability.
Previously Kate served as the United States’s first Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. In this capacity, she was responsible for promoting sustainability across Federal Government operations including 360,000 buildings, 650,000 vehicles, and $445 billion annually in purchased goods and services.
Prior to the White House, Kate held several senior roles in the U.S. Federal Government including Senior Advisor at the Department of Energy, Director for Energy and Environment in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, and Energy Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy.
Kate is the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest award the U.S. Navy can give to a civilian, for her work helping the Navy go green. Fortune Magazine named Kate to their 40 Under 40 list in 2021 and Outside Magazine also named her, in honor of the magazine’s 40-year anniversary, as one of 40 women who has made the biggest impact on our world. Kate was named #1 CSO by Sustainability Magazine in 2022 and 2023.
Kate serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society, co-chairs the Advisory Board of Overture Ventures, and serves on the Advisory Committees for Cambridge in America Bay Area and the Corporate Eco Forum.
Kate received a Masters degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She graduated with honors from Brown University.
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232K followers
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Kate Brandt shared thisToday, we’re releasing our 11th Environmental Report, which provides a holistic view of our 2025 sustainability performance. Our report comes at a critical time—as we navigate the tension between hyper-growth and environmental stewardship—and proves our enduring commitment to a more sustainable future. At Google, we’re deeply committed to responsibly managing the environmental footprint of our operations and unlocking the power of AI for the planet, and I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made: 💡 Purchasing record-breaking clean energy: Google is one of the largest corporate purchasers of clean energy in the world. In 2025 alone, we signed agreements for over 12 GW of net-new clean energy. 📉 Decoupling growth from emissions: We effectively decoupled our electricity demand from its related emissions, achieving a 2% year-over-year reduction in operational emissions despite a 37% annual increase in electricity consumption—our largest load growth in history. ⚙️ Driving emissions efficiencies: Initiatives like clean energy procurement and AI stack efficiencies collectively avoided over 58 million tCO2e in 2025. Without these efforts, our footprint would’ve been five times larger. 🌎 Scaling real-world impact: Nine of our solutions (like fuel-efficient routing, Nest thermostats, Green Light, Contrails, and more) helped others reduce an estimated 41 million tCO2e in 2025—for context, that’s roughly three times Google’s own emissions. We continue to evolve our approach in tandem with the technology we build, regularly assessing our strategy as we move forward with steady execution, balancing bold ambition with real-world impact. We’ll continue to prioritize AI stack efficiencies, clean energy and innovation to ensure our efforts make use of the transformative potential of AI to enhance lives globally. I invite you to explore our impact stories and metrics in the full report: - Read our blog: goo.gle/4xTkwGR - Explore the PDF: goo.gle/4vJBmX6 - Ask questions in Google NotebookLM: goo.gle/4xYvtqm - Or, swipe through some of our key highlights below.
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Kate Brandt shared thisBack when I worked for the US Department of the Navy, it became clear that the historic airship hangars at Moffett Federal Airfield required significant remediation. Fast-forward fifteen years: now those same hangars are under Google’s care, and our sustainability and real estate teams are taking innovative and responsible approaches to honor the airfield. Instead of a typical demolition, which would have routed the historic timber to the landfill, we tried a different approach. We worked closely with many partners to carefully deconstruct the building and salvaged approximately 119,000 board feet of old-growth Douglas-fir lumber for reuse. The lumber salvaged from Hangar 3 is now getting a new life in showcase installations across Google campuses in the Bay Area, California, and for mass timber construction at supporting office facilities on Google data center campuses. The building industry has made measurable progress in reducing embodied and operational carbon, yet the materials within the built environment typically follow a one-way path from extraction to disposal. This project shows that there’s a more sustainable alternative. With a rigorous process and a motivated team, we can challenge the status quo of demolition and instead view our existing buildings as “material banks.” Read more about the process and check out some of the amazing photos from the site in our new blog: goo.gle/3Syfgbq
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Kate Brandt shared thisEarlier this week at Google’s AI for the Planet event in London, I was asked an important question: “How is AI helping us build a healthier, more resilient world?" My answer is simple. It’s a shared responsibility—one that AI tools can help supercharge. In fact, they already are! 🌍💡 Here is how leaders across industries are stepping up: ⛈️ Met Office is using AI to predict extreme weather events earlier and more accurately, helping to ensure communities are never caught off guard by a natural disaster. ⚡ Deutsche Telekom used Gemini to analyze and update their aging infrastructure, successfully driving down energy consumption by an impressive 40%. 🌿 NGIS is combining geospatial technology, satellite data, and AI to provide real-time insights into the vital ecosystems that support millions of people. Now, our focus must be on getting these tools into more people's hands so we can build even more solutions together. I'm so excited to see what we come up with next.
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Kate Brandt shared thisAt Google’s AI for the Planet event in London today, we heard from leaders across government, industry, academia, and civil society who are deploying technology for a healthier planet. I’m left feeling that although the scale of the problems we’re trying to solve has never felt more urgent, the answers have also never felt more within reach. At Google, we believe technological progress doesn’t have to come at the expense of our climate ambition. But potential alone is not enough. True impact happens when this technology is put to work by our incredible collaborators. It was deeply inspiring to see how organizations are already using AI on the ground: 🌍 Mitigating carbon emissions: Open Climate Fix is using our weather models to help grid operators better predict renewable energy generation so they can bring more renewables online. 🛡️ Harnessing AI for crisis resilience: Deltares is using our open-source river models to help local experts predict severe floods earlier and keep communities safe. 🌱 Protecting our natural environment: Epoch is using our geospatial models to help companies track environmental risks like deforestation across their global supply chains. In spite of the significant challenges we face, it is gatherings like this one that leave me more optimistic than ever. Being surrounded by the brilliant minds and dedicated organizations driving this work reminds me that if we combine human leadership with the power of innovation, we can drive positive impact at a planetary scale. Thank you to everyone who joined us in London, and to the "doers" everywhere working tirelessly to advance critical solutions.
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Kate Brandt shared thisCould this be the world’s most important how-to video? I was thrilled to be part of the world premiere of "How to Live on Earth" tonight in London. It's an ambitious and hopeful feature documentary from Open Planet Studios exclusively streaming on YouTube starting this September. Some of the world’s greatest nature filmmakers show how humanity can build a safe and thriving future by working with nature, because we are part of nature. 🌿 Video has a unique power—it allows us to show, not just tell, what a sustainable future looks like. To turn that vision into real change, we need innovative climate solutions to reach as many people as possible. That’s exactly why the collaboration between incredible creators like Open Planet, and the world’s most-watched streaming platform, YouTube, is so essential. Did I mention it’s narrated by the incredible Benedict Cumberbatch, with music by one of my favorite composers, Hans Zimmer? Check out the incredible trailer ⤵️ goo.gle/4xJ7pI6
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Kate Brandt shared thisWildlife trafficking is a conservation problem, a security problem and sustainability problem. Problems that AI is uniquely capable of addressing. Today, Google is proudly joining fellow members of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online to confirm and expand our collective commitments. We’ll leverage the power of advanced AI models to: ➡️ Strengthen the detection of illegal online wildlife trading ➡️ Improve enforcement to permanently disrupt these criminal networks I’m incredibly grateful to United For Wildlife, IFAW, TRAFFIC, WWF, and all our coalition partners for the years of dedication you’ve put into this crucial piece of the sustainability puzzle. Together, we can help ensure our treasured wildlife can survive and thrive. Learn more about our collective commitment here ⤵️ goo.gle/4xyYKrA
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Kate Brandt shared thisIt’s incredible to see how much the carbon removal space has evolved over the last few years. When we co-founded Frontier four years ago, permanent carbon removal was largely a theory. Today, it is a growing reality, with hundreds of companies being built around the world, tens of thousands of carbon removal tons delivered, and more clarity than ever on the role new technologies will play in restoring Earth’s atmosphere. To help keep this momentum going, we’re thrilled to join Frontier’s new >$900 million commitment to accelerate breakthrough technologies for permanent CO2 removal! 🌍 This is a major expansion of the advance market commitment that we co-founded in 2022, and it comes at a critical time. The progress we're seeing on the ground is inspiring, and we’ll need to support more of it to reach gigaton-scale impact. Over and above the critical work of decarbonization, permanent removals are a crucial piece of the climate puzzle. When we combine them with work like restoring natural ecosystems and eliminating superpollutants, these approaches become more than the sum of their parts—working together to neutralize the warming impact of emissions across every timescale. We’re so proud to continue backing these innovations alongside other leading companies. Read more about this milestone and the next phase of Frontier’s work here ⤵️ https://goo.gle/4xOTGzE Learn more about Google’s latest scientific thinking behind our approach to removals here ⤵️ goo.gle/4oB9mSH$915M in new funding to drive carbon removal's next phase of growth$915M in new funding to drive carbon removal's next phase of growth
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Kate Brandt shared thisWhat a memorable evening attending the exclusive unveiling of the National Geographic Society’s new Museum of Exploration. This space is dedicated to sharing the pioneering solutions of Explorers who are working to safeguard our planet and ensuring that the power of exploration is accessible to all curious minds. I was especially excited to see the work of late great Explorer Jane Goodall and legends like Sylvia Earle presented along side a new generation of pioneers like Sandesh Kadur and Malaika Vaz. Congratulations to Jill Tiefenthaler and the whole team at NGS for bringing this incredible vision to life!
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Kate Brandt shared thisMy travels have provided some of my most memorable life experiences. I will never forget moments like my summer trip abroad in college and my flight back to California to start my job at Google. Traveling allows us to connect with the people and places that form who we are. But making travel more sustainable is a complex challenge; aviation remains one of the hardest industries to abate. Today, Google and American Airlines have signed a milestone multi-year partnership for 35 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). This represents the largest publicly announced SAF agreement between an airline and a corporate end-user to date. Here’s why this collaboration matters: Tackling scope 3 emissions: Google will receive the environmental benefits in the form of SAF certificates, totaling nearly 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which will help us address our emissions from employee business travel. Spurring SAF production: By signaling long-term corporate demand, this partnership enables American Airlines to secure a long-term SAF agreement with fuel producer Valero, helping to scale the entire production ecosystem. Advancing innovative procurement: American Airlines will take physical delivery of the fuel—made from waste feedstocks like used cooking oil—while Google receives the environmental benefits. All SAF will be third-party certified and the certificates will be independently tracked on the SAFc Registry. This partnership marks another critical step required to provide the predictable demand needed to scale sustainable technologies like SAF. Thank you to the team at American Airlines for collaborating with us to drive tangible, scalable action. Read more: goo.gle/3Qgww3Y
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Kate Brandt reacted on thisKate Brandt reacted on thisToday, at Google's AI for the Planet event during (a very hot!) London Climate Action Week, I was proud to share the progress we’ve made toward building AI tools to support our vision at Google: no one should ever be surprised by a natural disaster ✨ I’ve spent the last 22 years working on climate and sustainability. During this time, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in extreme weather events and natural disasters, devastating communities around the world and impacting roughly 124 million people each year. The evidence on the ground is clear: early warnings protect lives and property. I’m honored to get to work alongside my colleagues at Google as we seek to turn seemingly impossible problems into actionable solutions: 💧 Floods: We’ve scaled our Flood Hub platform to cover 2 billion people across more than 150 countries for the most significant river floods. We also introduced Groundsource, a methodology using Gemini to turn 20 years of public reports into a verified dataset to predict urban flash floods with 24-hour lead times, starting with urban areas. We open sourced our flash floods dataset and river floods model to enable scientists and forecasters to build on these breakthroughs. 🔥 Wildfires: We've expanded wildfire boundary tracking in Google Maps to 34 countries. And FireSat, a constellation of satellites developed with Muon Space and the Earth Fire Alliance, is designed to spot blazes as small as a garage--in near real-time. We’re launching three more satellites this summer to reach our goal of 50+. 🌀 Cyclones: WeatherNext 2 is our state-of-the-art AI weather model developed together with Google DeepMind and Google Research that generates highly detailed, hourly global forecasts in minutes, rather than hours. During the 2025 hurricane season, it consistently outperformed traditional models in predicting the path and intensity of hurricanes. We’ve partnered with alert distributors in over 90 countries to amplify official emergency alerts and public warnings. Last year, we helped connect people with crisis information over 10 million times per day. We’re moving toward resilience at scale. We’re proud to build these tools in collaboration with governments, UN agencies, and first responders to keep communities everywhere safe. So proud of our team and colleagues across the company who help make this a reality: our lead and sponsor Yossi Matias, Ronit Levavi Morad, Reuven Sayag, Avi Rosenschein, Susan G., Ashley Rivera, Karla Barrios, Alon Harris, Gila Loike, Lisie Lillianfeld, Olivia Graham, Shmulik Fronman, Deborah Cohen, Grey Nearing, Hadas Fester, Shahar Timnat, Matheus Vervloet, Elinor Kruse, Ferran Alet Puig, and many, many more! See our blog about how we’re supporting people to make decisions that enable a safer, more resilient planet: https://lnkd.in/g-vR4Uaf
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Kate Brandt liked thisKate Brandt liked thisI’ve been looking forward to this moment for years. And yet, somehow, after all this time, it feels surreal. Countless hours of meticulous planning, meetings, blueprints and curation culminated last night in the official ribbon cutting of the National Geographic Museum of Exploration. An audacious undertaking of this scale requires the help of a profoundly dedicated community. We were overjoyed to welcome #NatGeoExplorers, National Geographic Society Trustees, steadfast supporters, partners and friends who have cheered for us, advised us and believed in this museum from the beginning. Because they shared our vision, that shared vision is now a reality. I want to extend my tremendous thanks to our Base Camp Cornerstone Partners, ROLEX and Lilly Endowment Inc., our Museum of Exploration Grand Opening Partners, our Base Camp Founding Donors and everyone who joined us for our special celebration last night. Through your generosity and dedication, we now have a permanent home for exploration in the heart of Washington, D.C. #TheMOE officially opens its doors on Friday, June 26, and we cannot wait to welcome you. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eCeQD2Mt 📸 1. Photo by Elman Studio for National Geographic. 2. Photo by Rolf Sjogren/National Geographic. 3. Photo by Mark Thiessen/National Geographic
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Google
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Federal Chief Sustainability Officer
White House
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Director for Energy and Environment
White House
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Policy Analyst, Office of Energy and Climate Change
White House
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National Security Agency Review Team
Obama–Biden Presidential Transition Team
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Education
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Advisory Committee Member for Environmental Research and Education
National Science Foundation (NSF)
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Yee Carter
Had a great time coming back at my alma mater SAIS last week, on the Trust and Safety career panel alongside David Sullivan (DTSP), Lauren Maffeo (State of Maryland), Micaela Bullard (Meta), and Olga Belogolova (SAIS). We explored how the trust & safety landscape is evolving — particularly at the intersection of Responsible AI and tech policy. A few themes that stood out: • None of us followed a traditional path (T&S as a field barely existed when we were in school), but we all brought the same core traits: curiosity, hustle, and a genuine passion for navigating AI and platform governance responsibly — which matters more than having the 'perfect' background" • The field is rapidly professionalizing, with clearer career pathways emerging across tech, government, and civil society • AI is fundamentally changing how we approach risk assessment, policymaking and compliance at scale • Cross-functional skills matter more than ever — the best T&S professionals bridge policy, product, and operations • Growing opportunities in government and defense for AI governance roles — especially as federal agencies are now leveraging AI in military operations and emerging security considerations Thanks to the SAIS Tech and Innovation Focus Area and Emerging Technologies Initiative and especially to Olga Belogolova for organizing this panel! Always energizing to connect with students navigating this space and thinking about where they can make an impact. #TrustandSafety #SAIS #JohnsHopkins #AISafety #ResponsibleAI #AIGovernance #DefenseTech #DefenseAI #TechPolicy #PlatformIntegrity #NationalSecurity #EmergingTech
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Shane Tews
Great advice by WRC Former Ambassador Koh. The World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) isn’t something to think about every few years—it should be on our minds every day. Spectrum policy, global coordination, and technology leadership don’t happen overnight. The decisions made at WRC shape the future of connectivity, innovation, and competitiveness for the next decade. If we want to lead, we need to organize now—align stakeholders, set priorities, and engage early. Waiting until the conference is too late. The work starts now.
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John Woodside
Carney's forthcoming "climate competitiveness strategy" is being kept close to the vest, but lots of reason to expect the proposed oil and gas cap to be scrapped (four years of government work down the drain!) in favour of changes to industrial carbon pricing that looks an awful lot like doubling down on a policy that is known to be politically risky. The story unpacks this more, and takes a look at who has been lobbying the PMO in recent months. Short answer, oil and gas companies scoring plenty of meetings as climate groups struggle to make inroads. So where do things stand? Canada has an opportunity to position our economy for the energy transition, but instead we've got the head of Trans Mountain running the Major Projects Office, Carney and senior ministers talking up more LNG, and a climate strategy that could be shaped by an outdated ideas of what it means to be competitive in the 21st century. I'll be closely watching how this strategy unfolds, but in the meantime, here's my latest: https://lnkd.in/gx39YSBu
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James Lee
Excited to see LinkedIn joining the Stop Scams UK community. As scams operate across services and channels, bringing together insights from tech, banking and telecoms is critical to disrupting fraud earlier and at source. We’re already starting to see impact and look forward to working with the SSUK community on further practical pilots and intelligence‑sharing — a core part of SSUK’s model and a key theme in the upcoming discussions at the UN Global Fraud Summit in Vienna. Thanks to the SSUK team for the warm welcome Mark Tierney, Helen Fairfax-Wall, Joe Goddard and Adil M.!
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