Google is on a Mission to Make Their Food Offerings More Sustainable With Delicious Plant-Based Options

Technology giant, Google has been carbon neutral since 2007 and this year, they will reach 100 percent renewable energy for their operations, including their data centers and offices. But Google’s approach to sustainability doesn’t just end with renewable energy. On Google’s website, it states, “Climate change is real. We’re a global company, and our goal is to give everyone everywhere the tools and opportunities they need to play their own part in protecting the planet.”

So that’s why at Google’s Sunnyvale campus you can find vegan food options galore. Smartly, Google recognizes that meat consumption is a big part of their carbon footprint. Industrialized animal agriculture is at the heart of our environmental crisis. Not only is this industry responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector, it also currently occupies over half of the world’s arable land and uses a majority of the world’s freshwater stores.

Google has been offering more plant-based options on their campuses, but the company has also teamed up with non-profit World Resources Institute for their project Better Buying Lab. The project’s goal is to study the barriers that prevent consumers from shifting away from meat laden diets and to also come up with strategies to help overcome them.

According to a report in Fast Company, alongside a small group of other organizations, Google has been spent the last six months experimenting with new plant-based recipes to compete with “power dishes” often found on menus in the United States, such as a chicken salad sandwich and salmon.

At a recent competition from all of the organizations working with the Better Buying Lab, including Panera, Hilton Hotels, Standford University, Unilever, and food service company Sodexo, Google’s vegan taco won the grand prize out of around 50 dishes initially developed.

“We were trying to solve for a delicious alternative that would displace a good proportion of animal protein. It might be completely vegetarian, or it might be what we call a flipped product, where you’re eating 20 percent or 30 percent less of the animal protein,” Scott Giambastiani, Google’s global food program chef and operations manager, explained to Fast Company.

According to research conducted by SPINS, the leading retail sales data company for the natural and specialty products industry, the plant-based food sector has topped $5 billion in annual sales. The plant-based meat sector, in particular, reached $606 million in sales in 2016, with refrigerated meat alternatives experiencing a growth of 15.9 percent. So it sounds like Google’s cafeteria is not only doing something great for the planet, but staying ahead of the curve with current food trends. 

It’s great to see such an influential company taking a stand and using forks to fight Climate change. If you’re inspired and want to get started bettering the planet with your food choices, check out One Green Planet’s #EatForThePlanet campaign! 

Lead image source: Vegan Food/Flickr