Google – Iyanuoluwa Filani – 2025

Summary

Iyanuoluwa worked with Google’s Climate Operations team to develop a comprehensive and repeatable methodology to estimate Scope 3 electricity consumption for indirect suppliers.

Goals

Google, with an ambition to achieve net zero by 2030, is committed to addressing its value chain (Scope 3) emissions. Google enlisted EDF Climate Corps Fellow, Iyanuoluwa Filani, to develop a method to estimate electricity (MWh) consumption of the company’s indirect suppliers. The project’s goals were to evaluate the feasibility of using a spend-based approach to estimate electricity consumption, define the necessary data and processes, and apply the methodology to estimate consumption for Google’s indirect suppliers.

Solutions

Iyanuoluwa approached the challenge by:
1. Comparing and assessing two leading EEIO databases, and two estimation methods, direct calculation and structural path analysis.
2. Developing a replicable framework for leveraging EEIO models to estimate electricity emissions and consumption of indirect suppliers.
3. Applying the framework to estimate electricity consumption of Google’s indirect suppliers.
4. Providing actionable recommendations on the use of EEIO models and the estimation methods.

Potential Impact

Iyanuoluwa’s work provided a clear and robust framework for Google to estimate electricity consumption in its indirect supply chain, particularly for long-tail suppliers. This unlocked a potential emission reduction strategy to procure clean energy on behalf of these suppliers and effectively reduce Scope 3 emissions. The findings serve as a roadmap for Google should they pursue clean energy procurement on behalf of suppliers and can also be applied by other internal teams or external companies with similar sustainability goals.