- Microsoft has announced an ambitious goal and plans to reduce and ultimately remove its carbon footprint. These are the details.
Today Microsoft announced an ambitious goal and plan to reduce and ultimately remove its carbon footprint. By 2030, Microsoft plans to be carbon negative and by 2050 Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.
During an event at its Redmond campus, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, President Brad Smith, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood, and Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa announced the company has new goals and a detailed plan to become carbon negative.
“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 Smith. “By 2030 Microsoft will be carbon negative, and by 2050 Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.”
Microsoft also announced an aggressive program to cut carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, both for its direct emissions and for the entire supply and value chain. And this includes driving down its own direct emissions and emissions related to the energy we use to near zero by the middle of this decade. Plus it also announced a new initiative to use Microsoft technology to help its suppliers and customers around the world reduce their own carbon footprints and a new $1 billion climate innovation fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies.
Starting next year, Microsoft will also make carbon reduction an explicit aspect of our procurement processes for our supply chain. And a new annual Environmental Sustainability Report will detail Microsoft’s carbon impact and reduction journey. Plus Microsoft will use its voice and advocacy to support public policy that will accelerate carbon reduction and removal opportunities.
