- Microsoft announced a goal to achieve zero waste for the company’s direct operations, products, and packaging by 2030.
Every year, there are more than 11 billion tons of waste produced worldwide, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. The trash we discard pollutes land, waterways, natural resources, and the air we breathe. This is why Microsoft announced a goal to achieve zero waste for the company’s direct operations, products, and packaging by 2030.
“Our zero waste goal is the third sprint in Microsoft’s broad environmental sustainability initiative launched earlier this year focusing on carbon, water, ecosystems and waste. We are setting ambitious goals for each and empowering our customers with the technology and our learnings to do the same,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith in a blog post. “To address our own waste creation, Microsoft will reduce nearly as much waste as we generate while reusing, repurposing or recycling our solid, compost, electronics, construction and demolition, and hazardous wastes. We’ll do this by building first-of-their-kind Microsoft Circular Centers to reuse and repurpose servers and hardware in our datacenters. We’ll also eliminate single-use plastics in our packaging and use technology to improve our waste accounting. We will make new investments in Closed Loop Partners’ funds. And finally, we’ll enlist our own employees to reduce their own waste footprints.”
And by 2030, Microsoft will divert at least 90% of the solid waste headed to landfills and incineration from its campuses and data centers, manufacture 100% recyclable Surface devices, use 100% recyclable packaging (in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, countries), and achieve 75% (at a minimum) diversion of construction and demolition waste for all projects. This work builds on the company’s ongoing waste reduction efforts that started in 2008 — which resulted in the zero waste certifications at the company’s Puget Sound Campus and data centers in Boydton, Virginia and Dublin, Ireland.
In order to meet the growing demand for cloud services, Microsoft’s data center footprint – and the 3 million servers and related hardware that power it – have to expand. Currently, these servers have an average lifespan of 5 years and contribute to the world’s growing e-waste problem. And to reduce this waste, Microsoft is planning to repurpose and recycle these devices through new Microsoft Circular Centers — which will be located first at Microsoft’s new major datacenter campuses or regions and eventually added to existing ones.
With machine learning, Microsoft will process servers and hardware that are being decommissioned onsite. Microsoft is going to sort the pieces that can be reused and repurposed by the company, its customers, or sold. And Microsoft Circular Centers build on the company’s earlier circular cloud initiatives to extend the lifecycle of the company’s servers and minimize the waste sent to landfills.
“Approximately 300 million metric tons of plastic are produced every year, 50% of which is used one time. And, half of this plastic waste comes from packaging. The scale of this problem and its impact on our oceans, waterways, and land requires bold action, which is why we are eliminating single-use plastics from our packaging by 2025. This includes plastic film, primary product packaging, and our IT asset packaging in our data centers,” added Smith.
Microsoft is investing to digitize waste data across the company to identify opportunities to improve waste data collection. And this digital solution for the company’s operations will include technology to track and report on dashboard waste, Power BI platforms for e-waste chain-of-custody, and improving Microsoft Power Apps which helps the company capture real-time waste data.
Plus Microsoft is investing $30 million in Closed Loop Partners’ funds to help accelerate the infrastructure, innovation, and business models for supply chain digitization, e-waste collection, food waste reduction, and recycling industry products to build a more circular economy at scale. Closed Loop Partners is known for pioneering in circular economy innovation with a track record of working with corporate partners to pilot new solutions.
Microsoft is going to share its learning from its own zero waste journey with customers — who are already using Microsoft’s technology to better understand, measure and reduce their own waste footprint.
In 2019, Microsoft also partnered with H&M, Target, PVH Corp., and others to explore the need and to formulate a suggestion of global standard powered by Azure called Circular ID. This platform tracks a garment in an effort to create a more sustainable fashion economy by reusing clothing through rental, resale, or recycle instead of being destroyed.
And Dutch nonprofit Madaster Foundation is also using digital identities to eliminate waste. Madaster’s platform tags materials with an identity so they can be recycled, resold, and reused.
Vancouver-based online organic food delivery company SPUD built a logistics platform on Microsoft Dynamics 365 that uses AI to lower food waste. In one year, SPUD diverted 265,971 kilograms of waste from the landfill, preventing 444 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere, and saved 3,564,275 liters of water.
Microsoft is launching the first waste reduction challenge, which is a month-long online challenge connecting individual action to collective impact later this year. And the company’s employees will have the opportunity to learn how they can participate in Microsoft’s corporate waste program and commit to taking impactful action in their daily lives.
The challenge will focus on actions employees can take at home during the global health crisis. And these challenges will incorporate themes of waste prevention, material reuse, circular economy, and waste equity. Microsoft will also create more opportunities for employees to become actively involved through company-wide activities such as the company’s annual weeklong hackathon that will include a call for proposals on waste reduction.
“Zero waste is an ambitious goal, but minimizing our own waste footprint is essential to preserving the natural resources and reducing waste-associated carbon emissions to ensure our economies and societies around the world thrive for generations to come,” Smith commented.
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