A new use for Google Maps: calculating a city’s carbon footprint

A new use for Google Maps: calculating a city’s carbon footprint

Google maps Looking at any other city's Google Map data, in combination with other data, a new tool from Google can estimate the carbon footprint of all its buildings -

 and all car cruises, carbon footprint of bus and subway rides, and other transport Can be used by people living there google map.

Environmental Insight Explorer, an online tool launched in beta on 10th September and is still in development, is designed to help cities deal with the first phase of the scheme to reduce emissions:

to know that What is their current carbon footprint. More than 9,000 cities are already committed to cutting emissions according to the goals of the Paris Agreement,

but more than one-third of those cities have not yet made a list of emissions. This process can take months or years, and can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, which makes it particularly challenging for small towns.


The new tool, which Google has built with the global contract for mayors for climate and energy, can help cities calculate a large portion of those emissions.

Nicole Lombardo says, "It's looking at thousands of cities that are present there, who do not have the resources to dig the data or to analyze the data,"

Google's environmental insights are heading towards the team's partnership, which That's the tool "This tool helps to do some of that and reduces some complications and costs in that process, 

so you have more time to gather data and data Rncing and work costs more to spend more on the plan. "

Using Google Maps data, the device can estimate that the building is a home or business, and then estimates the estimated size of each building and the data about the regional grid,

how much energy is used for buildings and that energy How much emissions it uses. Using location data from Google Maps,

 the tool can estimate traffic and travel patterns, and then can estimate emissions from that transport.


The data can be transferred deeper to accommodate the data to expand the cities, for example, or if the city has added a new metro line, the footprint will change. 

Add caption

The tool also draws Google's project sunroof, which uses AI to analyze satellite images to determine which roofs are suitable for solar power, so cities can consider solar power because they Plan to cut emissions.


As the environment insights explorer is now in beta, it is possible to see an analysis of the cities to some extent. The team is now working with the cities to refine the design and to ensure the accuracy of the data. 

But in the end it wants to provide the tool to provide this tool. Lombardo says, "The beauty is that we are sitting on a mass data set that is capable of standardizing and scaling."