[danpalmer]

Yeah I'm fully aware of carbon offset fraud. I believe much of the carbon neutrality comes from buying actual clean energy – something that is much clearer cut as a good thing. I believe there is a component of carbon offsetting, but the fraud risk and general quality of carbon offsets is something the company seems acutely aware of, and seems to put a lot of effort into not falling into the traps.

Google has been doing this since well before it was cool. It's not some attempt to green-wash an image, it's deeply ingrained in the company in my experience and there's a lot of effort to do it right.