Google Unveils Five New Sustainability Initiatives in India, Targets Solar, Climate-Smart Agriculture, Clean Energy

Google has announced five new sustainability initiatives in India, targeting climate-smart agriculture, clean energy, climate technology, and circularity. The initiatives bring together AI, satellite imagery, and climate technologies with partnerships involving farmers, researchers, businesses, and startups. Google's Solar API can now generate rooftop solar insights for more than 300 million rooftops across India and over 1.2 billion buildings globally. The technology enables solar installers to assess a building's solar potential remotely, reducing the time and cost involved in physical site assessments. Google is partnering with ReNew Power for a 150 MW solar generation project in Rajasthan, with the environmental attributes associated with the clean electricity generated by the project to be used to address electricity-related emissions across its value chain. The project marks Google's second Scope 3-focused solar initiative in India. Google is also partnering with Mitti Labs to help tens of thousands of smallholder rice farmers adopt Alternate Wetting and Drying practices in Telangana, which could conserve billions of gallons of water across regional basins while maintaining crop productivity. The Google Center for Climate Technology is expanding its focus areas to include water stewardship and waste and circularity, with proposals invited through the Manthan Platform. Four Indian startups have joined the Google DeepMind Accelerator: AI for the Planet, aiming to solve environmental challenges by applying AI, satellite data and other technologies to agriculture, agroforestry, biodiversity restoration, and carbon solutions. Google aims to extend support to the emerging climate-tech startup ecosystem in India.