In a recent study, environmental activist organization Greenpeace commended Google for its renewable energy rating, and now the search giant’s Finance Blog has Google+Finance+Blog%29″ target=”_blank”>updated its carbon footprint ratings.

Sam Arons, self-proclaimed Carbon Maven and member of the company’s energy team, discusses Google’s partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project, a global environmental information management firm. Google’s carbon disclosure ratings are now posted in tandem with their financial reports, and measures the company’s greenhouse gas emissions, as well as how environmental changes can affect business. The CDP scores are listed as “Carbon Disclosure Rating,” and appear in the “Key stats and ratios” field on the right of Google’s Finance page:

Google began adding carbon reports to its financial information in April of 2010, marking the first time this class of data was made available to investors. The data is revelent, as a big carbon footprint can foster environmental changes, which in tern can prompt financial risks – Arons cites regulatory risks (e.g. legislation placing costs on carbon-intensive activities), physical risks (e.g. sea-level rise threatening a company’s facilities) and market risks (e.g. consumers switching to another company’s products because they believe that company to be a better environmental steward). The CDP utilizes all of these factors when compiling a company’s carbon score, when is a useful tool for investors.

Google had also recently been commended for working with local authorities in Georgia to conserve water while cooling its servers at its Douglas County data facility. Below is a clip of the system in use: