Microsoft aims to be carbon negative by 2030

Microsoft has announced its grand goal to not only become carbon negative by 2030, but by 2050 to go even further and have removed from the environment “all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975”.

“While the world will need to reach net zero, those of us who can afford to move faster and go further should do so. That’s why today we are announcing an ambitious goal and a new plan to reduce and ultimately remove Microsoft’s carbon footprint,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith.

On its official blog page, the company outlines the steps it intends to take in order to reach these goals. Specifically, it will:

• institute an “aggressive program to cut carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, both for our direct emissions and for our entire supply and value chain”;
• drive down its own direct emissions and emissions related to energy use to near zero by the middle of the 2020s;
• shift to 100% supply of renewable energy by 2025, “meaning that we will have power purchase agreements for green energy contracted for 100 percent of carbon emitting electricity consumed by all our data centres, buildings, and campuses”;
• electrify its global campus operations vehicle fleet by 2030;
• pursue International Living Future Institute Zero Carbon certification and LEED Platinum certification for its Silicon Valley Campus and Puget Sound Campus Modernization projects;
• use Microsoft technology to help its suppliers and customers reduce their own carbon footprints;
• use US$1 billion of its own capital to form a Climate Innovation Fund to “accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture and removal technologies”;
• beginning in 2021, make carbon reduction an explicit aspect of its procurement processes for its supply chain;
• issue an annual Environmental Sustainability Report detail the company’s carbon impact and “reduction journey”.
   

You can read a lot more detail about these commitments in the Microsoft blog.

Pictured: Microsoft President Brad Smith, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Brian Smale.