????隨著雙層巴士轉入查爾斯頓路（Charleston Road），開始蜿蜒穿梭谷歌（Google）位于加利福尼亞州山景城（Mountain View, Calif.）的園區，我全身舒泰地坐在公務艙標準大小的座椅上，欣賞平滑的黑色皮革以及腳下毛絨灰色的地毯。寬敞的折疊桌伸展開來，擺放著我的筆記本電腦，它已經與車內的WiFi系統連接。這趟奢華雙層巴士的單價為80萬美元，是谷歌擁有和運營的73輛巴士之一。（該公司向外出租26輛。）每天這些班車都運送大約4,500名員工，相當于三分之一在谷歌園區（Googleplex，谷歌總部的名字）工作的人。

????事實上，谷歌提供的免費搭乘服務并不只是員工福利的一部分——它實際上還幫公司節省了資金。沒錯，每天有4,500人搭乘這些巴士上下班，從中節省2個小時用于工作，進而為公司提高生產力。但谷歌的巴士服務還有更深層次的意義。山景城的房地產價格較高。地下停車場的修建費用高達8.5萬美元。如果谷歌要為每位巴士乘客修建一個停車位，那么總費用可能幾乎達到4億美元。這還不包括損失了將該片土地用以建造新辦公大樓的機會成本。

????谷歌也已經在交通運輸方面進行了其他投資。白天，如果某位谷歌員工需要出外辦事或者到學校接生病的孩子，他可以使用停在園區里的52架電動和混合動力汽車。谷歌還鼓勵員工駕駛電動車。據估計，谷歌已經支出300萬至400萬美元去安裝395個充電器——這是美國最大的企業電動車基礎設施。

????近年來，為能源問題尋找創造性的解決方案成了谷歌聯合創始人兼首席執行官拉里?佩奇的一項首要任務。出于一些明顯的原因——人口增長、資源日漸匱乏以及氣候變化，他相信企業領域需要更加可持續地運作，同時決心打造全國首個零碳排放企業。這意味著該公司最終將非常節能，使用大量的清潔能源，因此不會排放溫室氣體——事實上這是非常難以辦到的事情。專家們并不確定是否有可能一個企業能完全不排放碳，但是谷歌正在嘗試盡可能達到這個目標。谷歌第八號員工厄爾斯?霍爾澤爾說：“隨著我們成為更大的能源用戶，我們希望確保我們不只制造問題，更能參與解決問題?！彼麚胃呒壐笨偛?，負責管理公司的綠色項目。

????為了達到這個大膽的零碳排放目標，谷歌將采取三管齊下的辦法。首先，提高服務器群組、辦公室大樓和通勤習慣的能源效率。（顯然，這個等式并沒有涵蓋佩奇和另一位聯合創始人謝爾蓋?布林共同擁有的波音767飛機。）其次，截至目前，該公司向太陽能和風能發電商投資了大量資金——9.15億美元，以增加清潔能源的供應。最后，該公司將購買足夠的“碳抵消”以使公司（至少在理論上）實現碳中和，直到實現自己的目標。

????如果這項計劃奏效，佩奇將為其他公司創造一個可供參考的藍圖，幫助它們減少各自使用的能源，更重要的是為公司省錢。但谷歌在這方面已經有過一些慘痛的教訓。

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????As the double-decker bus turns onto Charleston Road and starts winding through Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus, I stretch out in the business-class-size seat, admiring the smoothness of the black leather and the plush gray carpeting at my feet. A spacious table expands to hold a laptop, which can connect to the vehicle's Wi-Fi system. This $800,000 luxury double-decker is one of 73 buses that Google owns and operates. (It leases 26 others.) Each day the fleet transports about 4,500 employees, or about a third of those working at the Googleplex, as the company's headquarters is known.

????It turns out that Google (GOOG) isn't offering a free ride simply as an employee perk -- the buses actually save the company money. Yes, there's the added productivity of 4,500 employees working an extra couple of hours each day while riding to and from work. But Google's bus service is about much more than that. Real estate in Mountain View is expensive. Underground parking spaces cost as much as $85,000 to construct. (Really!) If Google had to build a parking space for each of the bus riders, the price tag would run to almost $400 million. And that's not counting the lost opportunity cost of not using that land for new office buildings.

????Google has made other investments in transportation too. If, during the day, a Google-ite needs to run an errand or pick up a sick kid at school, he or she can hop into one of 52 electric and hybrid cars parked on campus. The company also encourages employees to drive electrics. It has spent an estimated $3 million to $4 million to install 395 chargers -- the largest corporate electric-vehicle infrastructure in the country.

????Finding creative solutions to energy issues has become a major priority for Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page in recent years. For the obvious reasons -- a growing population, increasingly scarce resources, and climate change -- he believes that the corporate world needs to operate more sustainably, and he is determined to build the nation's first zero-carbon company. This means a business that ultimately is so energy efficient and uses so much clean power that it emits no greenhouse gas -- a very tall order indeed. Experts aren't sure whether it's even possible for a company to emit no carbon, but Google is trying to come as close to that goal as possible. "As we became a bigger user of energy, we wanted to make sure we were not just part of the problem, but part of the solution," says Urs H?lzle, Google's employee No. 8 and a senior vice president who oversees the company's green initiatives.

????To reach its audacious zero-carbon goal, Google is taking a three-pronged approach. First, it's making its server farms, office buildings, and commuting habits more energy efficient. (Apparently Page's Boeing 767, which he owns with co-founder Sergey Brin, doesn't get counted in the equation.) Then the company is investing heavily -- $915 million to date -- in solar and wind producers to make clean energy more available. And finally it is buying enough carbon offsets to make the company carbon neutral -- at least on paper -- until it can meet its overall goal.

????If the plan works, Page will have created a blueprint that other companies can use to reduce their own energy use and -- as important -- save money at the same time. But Google has already learned some hard lessons.