Microsoft cuts carbon emissions by 6% in first year

February 1, 2021

Microsoft cuts carbon emissions by 6% in first year

Microsoft has reduced carbon emissions by 6 per cent, or roughly 730,000 metric tonnes, in its first year of the broad committed to become carbon negative as a company by 2030.

According to Microsoft President Brad Smith, the company has purchased the removal of 1.3 million metric tons of carbon from 15 suppliers across 26 projects around the world.

“During our first year, we reduced our emissions by 6 per cent, from 11.6 million metric tons to 10.9 metric tonnes.

“By 2030, our goal is to cut our emissions by more than half. This means that if we sustain and then improve upon these reductions for 10 consecutive years, we will reach and hopefully exceed this goal,” Smith said in a blog post.

By 2050, Microsoft has committed to remove from the environment all the carbon that the company has emitted directly or through electricity use since the company was founded in 1975.

A small part of last year’s reduction was due to the type of decreased activity the world experienced because of COVID-19.

“Obviously that aspect is unsustainable, making other and more significant sources of progress more important. At the top of this list is the need to accelerate a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy in our facilities and emissions reductions by our suppliers,” Smith emphasised.

He, however, lamented that there is no real existing carbon removal ecosystem and the world must build a new market on an unprecedented scale and timeline, from nearly scratch.

“This will be incredibly hard, requiring integrity, public-private coordination, and heavy investment simultaneously”.

Smith said that the progress on sustainability goals will be included as a factor in determination of executive pay starting with our next fiscal year in July.