ADAM ELMAN
SUSTAINABILITY
Adam adds that, in its work with aviation partners, Google has proven it can cut contrails by 62 % – an impact that simply wasn’ t possible before AI.
“ That’ s a third of emissions from flying cut by 62 %,” he continues,“ equating to about 0.6 % of global emissions.”
Lyndsay explains that ServiceNow not only contemplates its own footprint, but also considers how it enables customers to meet their ESG goals as well.
She explains:“ You’ re automatically starting to use AI and getting more insights into how you can make more responsible decisions for your business and create greater efficiency around your hardware.
“ As we think about the future of AI, it truly comes down to how your data is aggregated and how you have insights into that. Then, you can start making better-informed decisions across the enterprise.”
ADAM ELMAN
TITLE: DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY EMEA
COMPANY: GOOGLE INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY
Adam is a sustainability leader with at least 20 years of experience in driving positive transformational change. He is currently the Director of Sustainability for Google in the EMEA region.
AI and the climate crisis Running data centres clearly requires immense amounts of energy and water. In fact, data centres accounted for around 1.5 % of the world’ s electricity consumption in 2024, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
Campaigners have regularly questioned the justification for such energy-intensiveness given the ongoing climate crisis, while asking who is responsible: hyperscalers, end users or enterprise partners? Ultimately, leaders at Sustainability LIVE agreed that it comes down to partnership across the entire supply chain.
“ We’ re building AI,” says Sophie,“ so we’ ve trained our R & D engineers on the Green Software Foundation principles, for example, but then we host with hyperscalers.”
She adds that customer demand is key to creating a business case for sustainability initiatives:“ I think bolstering it with that businesscase, particularly in the absence of regulation, is really important.”
Adam asserts that large enterprises have a duty to ensure they are developing and deploying technologies in a responsible manner, highlighting that Google’ s data centres are some of the most efficient in the world.
96 July 2026