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Since Google declared its 100 percent commitment to renewables back in 2012, it has signed contracts that will help add almost 2.6 gigawatts of wind- and solar-generated electricity to the grid by the time all the projects are completely. While each of those installations has its own timetable for completion, at least 900 megawatts of those projects should come online within the next four to six weeks alone, according to one of Google's energy strategy executives. Over the course of next year, all the clean power that Google is adding to the grid will offset what it's using in aggregate. And moving forward, Google wants to ensure that more of the electricity it actually uses can be traced to renewable generating sources.

Now Google, the longtime business leader, is taking lessons from behavioral economics and becoming a sustainability leader. For almost a year, the company has been nudging its employees to eat less meat, and it's working. Google has teamed up with the Better Buying Lab, a division of the World Resources Institute, which uses the nudge theory to "enable consumers to buy and consume more sustainable foods."

Google has partnered with The Common Ground Alliance - a group of the world's largest advertisers - to launch the Common Future Project, a global YouTube-based campaign that aims to engage "Generation Z" (aged 15 to 24) around the Sustainable Development Goals. Google will provide a grant to support and amplify the campaign.

Google emitted 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012, a 9 percent decrease from the previous year, according to the search giant's latest carbon footprint data.

Google has attached pollution sensors to a select number of its Street View cars as part of a pilot program, in partnership with environmental sensor network company Aclima. The project is intended to help civic leaders improve the well-being of their citizens by identifying highly polluted urban areas.

Google, in an effort to reduce waste and increase recycling, has partnered with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to help drive the circular economy.

Big, boundary-pushing ideas - such as the Google founders' many varied tech endeavors - could help move the needle on sustainability in a more meaningful way.

A new Google-powered tool called Google Earth Engine is helping environmental groups and researchers to keep tabs on problems including Amazonian deforestation, overfishing, sea-ice melt and the spread of diseases. The tool's real-time data trove and mapping features make it easier to stay on top of the wealth of data now available, researchers say. "When you visualize it, you can get it at the gut level. ... You can see it happening," says Randy Sargent of Carnegie Mellon University.

A growing number of organizations from Google to the federal government are incorporating homages to nature into their office blueprints, not just to earn more green building certification points but to reduce employee stress, improve cognitive function and encourage creativity.

Google, Apple, Bank of America, Best Buy, HP and Microsoft are among those giving financial incentives based on sustainability metrics a shot, according to a round up of corporate disclosure documents released this week by the environmental nonprofit CDP.

Tech giants Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have submitted a joint brief to the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court in support of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.

What do tech giants Apple, Google, Intel and Microsoft, retailers Kohl's, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, the U.S. Energy and Veteran Affairs Departments, and the cities of Houston and Washington, D.C. have in common? According to recently updated data in the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Partnership, they are the most prolific users of renewable energy in the United States.

Google user pumps out the same amount of carbon emissions each month as they would driving a car one mile. Reduced emissions by 32% from 44.3 tons to 30.3 tons

A group of 29 companies and organizations launched collectively.org, a website designed to engage millennials on environmental issues by showcasing examples of sustainability in art, culture, food, and technology. CEF members involved in the initiative include Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, Facebook, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce and Unilever.

Despite news about Google and Apple investing in clean energy to power their huge data centers, Internet companies' renewable energy efforts are being held back by slow-moving, monopolistic utilities and sclerotic state policies, according to a report by Greenpeace released Tuesday.

Ok, THIS is cool! Ecosia works in much the same way as its major competitors (Google, Bing, etc.), but rather than keep any income from advertising and sponsored links, the site donates around 80 percent to charities involved in the replanting of trees in Brazilian rainforests, such as the Nature Conservancy.

Google has purchased an additional 842 MW of renewable energy capacity for its global data center operations, bringing the company's total renewable energy portfolio to 2 GW worldwide. The announcement marks the largest purchase of renewable energy by a non-utility company to date.

Google has achieved a 40% reduction in the amount of energy its datacenters use for cooling through a machine learning technology developed by its subsidiary DeepMind.

Deep learning AI has been put to work in intelligent drones, sequencing genomes, learning the tactics of the ancient Chinese board game Go, and even keeping cats off the lawn. Now, Google has set its DeepMind system loose on its massive data centers, and drastically cut the cost of cooling these facilities in the process.

Some of the Internet's biggest names are making impressive strides to reduce the carbon footprint of the cloud, says Greenpeace. Yet as the world's appetite for data expands, Twitter and Amazon Web Services are bringing up the rear.