Who is Luis Davila? Google appoints former Schneider executive to lead strategic communications for sustainability

Google has appointed Luis Davila, a seasoned communications professional, to lead its strategic communications for sustainability. Davila, who served as senior director, corporate communications at Schneider Electric, made the announcement on LinkedIn.

“Google has been setting the pace on corporate climate action for more than a decade, from scaling clean power globally to investing in carbon removal and the technological innovations that drive down emissions across its operations and the broader industry,” Davila said in the LinkedIn post.

“I’m looking forward to helping communicate how the company is managing its environmental footprint and putting AI to work for the planet,” he added.

Schneider, Amazon, UN

Davila, who led Schneider Electric’s external corporate communications in North America, including the overall AI and data center narrative, had also worked at Amazon in the past, where he was the head of Sustainability Communications.

Davila also worked at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where his role involved communications and partnerships supporting the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Why Google needs Davila

Google’s appointment of Davila to lead strategic communications for sustainability comes at a time when tech companies, especially those in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, are facing public backlash over the use of resources.

M***ive AI data centers, including those owned by the likes of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and CoreWeave, are under the scanner for their excessive use of water and electricity to keep the power-hungry GPUs running.

Pushback against data centers

According to a study by the University of Georgia, hyperscale data centers can consume anywhere from 300,000 to 5 million gallons of water per day (equivalent to the daily usage of a small town or a city of up to 50,000 people), primarily for evaporative cooling systems.

A recent report by the Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association noted that while data centers make up a small fraction of total national water withdrawals, roughly 40% to two-thirds are built in water-stressed regions, heavily straining local municipal supplies.

It also noted that most of that cooling water has historically come from potable sources like municipal water or groundwater.

“One blockysis estimated that around 57% of data centers’ direct water use is from potable water supplies. Another industry ***essment was even starker: 80–90% of water used by data centers is drawn from “blue” water sources such as lakes, rivers, or aquifers – often the same sources providing community drinking water,” the report said.

In recent years, as AI infrastructure buildup has gained pace, companies have also faced opposition from locals who fear that they would end up competing against giant corporations for water and electricity.