Microsoft is taking on an ambitious commitment to eliminate its carbon footprint. The Tech giant is pledging to go “carbon negative” over the next decade while investing $1 billion to help develop clean technologies.
Microsoft in a statement says it will seek to remove more carbon than it emits by 2030.
“While the world will need to reach net-zero, those of us who can afford to move faster and go further should do so,” Microsoft’s president Brad Smith said in a statement.
The company’s plans involve cutting its carbon emissions (with an estimation of about 16 million metric tons this year), by more than half. The cut will be both in its own operations and across its supply chain.
“We will fund this in part by expanding our internal carbon fee,” Smith added in reference to the $15-per-metric-ton tax all of Microsoft’s business units pay on their emissions.
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Smith admits that it “won’t be easy” for Microsoft to be carbon negative by 2030. “This is a bold bet, a moonshot, for Microsoft,” he said, “and it will need to become a moonshot for the world.”
Microsoft also says it “will remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975” by 2050.
This pledge comes as major tech companies face mounting pressure from shareholders and their own employees to do more in addressing the threat climate change poses.
In 2019, Amazon said it would buy and deploy 100,000 electric delivery vans by 2024. This is part of a broader climate pledge involving reducing its own carbon emissions to net-zero by 2040.
Apple had also set a long-term goal of making all its products only from recycled or renewable materials. It affirmed that all its stores, data centers, and corporate offices now run on 100% clean energy. However, Apple had also pushed back at some climate change proposals from its shareholders.
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