On Friday, I watched a special edition of Art Fennell Reports on the Comcast network that explored Google headquarters campus in Mountain View, California. The campus has 11,000 employees. How does an exploration of Google’s headquarters fit into this blog? Well, for many web surfers, Google is the Internet portal to multimedia news coverage websites and video feeds. So, why not know about the company which is a portal to new media itself. Here’s what I found out from various interviews mentioned in the report that I thought were worth sharing.
Last year, the company reduced its carbon footprint to zero without negatively affecting its profits and actually finds that they are saving both money and the environment by continually looking for and implementing environmentally friendly technologies. The report conveyed that the company is focused on trying to make and use renewable energy that does not involve coal consumption. 30% of Google’s main campus is powered with solar. The company also has plans to invest in small startup companies that are researching and innovating ways to use wind, thermal, and geo-thermal energy technology. It also offers incentives to employees who drive fuel efficient cars up to a $4,000 subsidy according to the report, and employees can bike to work via a bike path that goes from the suburbs of Mountain View to the heart of the business district. Most of the food served on the campus is grown on the campus via the use of Earth boxes and there are even onsite nutritionists.
According to an interview with Judi LaMotte, People Ops Manager for Google as well as the report in general there are several perks to working at the company. The company is concerned with work life balance and They include a number of onsite services that employees can utilize throughout the day such as: laundry service, car wash, medical facilities, wired shuttle buses for commuters from San Francisco and the East Bay, free meals at one of several cafeterias, the ability to bring your dog to work with you, and hybrid cars that employees who shuttle to work can use during the day. Google In the report, LaMotte commented that the onsite offerings offer peace of mind. She said they save her from “the hassles that you normally have to catch up on on the weekends or after work”
At the end of the special report, the show’s host, Art Fennell, referred to the company as “A world in itself.” . I found the report interesting and inspiring and thought it was worth summarizing here. It also made me wonder what other large corporations are doing to maintain the environment. That is something definitely worth researching. Oh yeah, it also made me want to go work there ASAP!
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