Carbon Footprint - August 13th, 2024 [Change]

## Change Beginning with the release of January 2024 data, Google Cloud Carbon Footprint has adopted a semi-annual methodology improvement schedule, with updates planned for January and July data releases each year. For the July 2024 data release (in mid-August 2024), we have upgraded the carbon model to version 11 and implemented the following updates: **Updating Scope 1 & 3 emissions from Google's corporate footprint**: * Updated Scope 1 & 3 allocation factors using latest Google company-wide data from [2024 Google Environmental Report](https://sustainability.google/reports/google-2024-environmental-report/). See the [non-electricity emission sources section of methodology documentation](https://cloud.google.com/carbon-footprint/docs/methodology#non-electricity-allocation) on how we apply these Scope 1 & 3 emissions across Google products and services. * Notably, expanded the Scope 1 & 3 inventory boundary to include the following for a more comprehensive emissions inventory: * HVAC fugitive emissions * Additional emissions categories of transmission & distribution (T&D) loss * Extraction and transportation of fuels used to generate grid electricity **Updating renewable electricity percentage for Scope 2 market-based emissions from Google's corporate footprint**: * Updated **annual** renewable electricity percentage from Google's clean energy procurement, in accordance with [2024 Google Environmental Report](https://sustainability.google/reports/google-2024-environmental-report/), as an input for Scope 2 market-based emissions. Note that Scope 2 location-based emissions are estimated using **hourly** greenhouse gas emissions factors. Read more about the difference in methodology between Scope 2 location-based and market-based emissions in the [methodology document](https://cloud.google.com/carbon-footprint/docs/methodology#market-based-allocation). **Improving allocation of shared internal AI/ML resources**: * Improved the treatment of central machine learning compute resources and workloads across Google products and services, including corrected central resource impact to the following Google Cloud services: * Cloud Natural Language * Translate * Cloud Vision API * Cloud Speech API * Cloud Dialogflow API * Vertex AI * Cloud AutoML * Cloud Machine Learning Engine * Video Stitcher API * Cloud Video Intelligence API * Notebooks * Cloud Text-to-Speech API **Improving data accuracy**: * Improved data center PUE mapping and energy allocation to internal services.