How Google is reducing food waste at its staff cafeterias, and why the sustainability measures could be hard to swallow for its employees
- The tech giant aims to reduce its impact on the environment by cutting food waste at its employee cafes around the world. It claims to be ‘seeing good progress’
- From recycling leftovers to cooking eggs to order, the reductions cut waste and costs, but risk annoying workers long spoiled by Google’s famous perks
It’s not just the headcount at Google that’s getting smaller.
Like other Silicon Valley giants retrenching amid financial uncertainty, Google has cut thousands of jobs since January 2023. But the company is also accelerating changes within its lavish corporate cafeterias – a long-time lure for tech employees – that will both reduce costs and cut the company’s food waste.
From offering smaller milk containers to cooking eggs on the spot instead of in advance, Google has found ways to put less food in the rubbish bin while trying to make sure employees don’t feel cheated out of one of the company’s most beloved perks.
Google’s food waste goals are set on a 2025 timeline, which is tighter than the 2030 deadlines tied to many of its other sustainability efforts. The company said in March 2022 that it aimed to cut waste per employee by half and send zero food waste to landfills by 2025. By the end of 2022, it had already diverted 85 per cent of waste.
“The near-term nature of it makes it challenging,” says Kate Brandt, Google’s chief sustainability officer. The company hasn’t released more recent numbers but Brandt says they are “seeing good progress”.