Microsoft’s new sustainability report, launched late final week, exhibits how a carbon-heavy financial system can weigh on an organization that wishes to be carbon mild.
Since 2020, its carbon emissions are up 23.4%, largely a results of breakneck information middle buildout to help its rising cloud and AI operations. Buying sufficient clear electrical energy is definitely the simple half — it’s the amenities themselves which can be laden with carbon-intensive supplies and merchandise, together with metal, concrete, and pc chips.
“We replicate the challenges the world should overcome to develop and use greener concrete, metal, fuels, and chips,” a Microsoft spokesperson advised TechCrunch by way of electronic mail. “These are the largest drivers of our Scope 3 challenges.”
Scope 3 emissions are these which can be exterior an organization’s direct management, together with uncooked supplies, transportation, and bought items and companies. Emissions in Scope 3 signify almost all of Microsoft’s carbon footprint, simply over 97% for fiscal yr 2024, which the 2025 sustainability report covers.
Microsoft’s Scope 3 profile is dominated by capital items and bought items and companies, with the 2 contributing about three-quarters of the corporate’s whole carbon emissions.
The building of knowledge facilities has been the primary driver behind Microsoft’s cussed Scope 3 emissions. The metal used within the buildings comes from a provide chain that depends on blast furnaces heated by fossil fuels, and concrete used within the basis is the product of a chemical response that’s each powered by and a producer of carbon dioxide. Some startups are working to decarbonize each metal and cement, and Microsoft is an investor within the house, nevertheless it’ll be years earlier than these bets could have a big impression.
Carbon emissions are embodied within the pc chips inside the information middle, too. Semiconductor lithography relies on chemical substances which have extraordinarily excessive international warming potential. For instance, hexafluoroethane, which is used to etch options on chips, is a potent greenhouse gasoline, with 1 ton producing as a lot warming as 9,200 tons of carbon dioxide.
Even in inexperienced electrical energy, which is simpler to seek out, hurdles have popped up as information facilities aren’t at all times constructed close to ample clear vitality sources. Because of that, Microsoft has had a tough time discovering close by sources of zero-carbon electrical energy, forcing it to depend on purchases elsewhere. “Our electrical energy consumption has grown quicker than the grids the place we function have decarbonized,” the spokesperson stated.
Overall, Microsoft’s 2024 emissions have been down barely in contrast with 2023, suggesting that the corporate is getting higher at constructing information facilities with decrease local weather impacts. Still, it has a protracted method to go to fulfill its 2030 objective of eradicating extra carbon air pollution that it generates. By its personal forecast, Microsoft should lower its emissions by greater than half whereas additionally considerably ramping up its carbon removing efforts.
There are indicators that Microsoft is making some headway on each fronts. It has been one of many main traders in and patrons of solar energy in latest months, and its zero-carbon electrical energy portfolio now stands at 34 gigawatts of capability. Plus, it has lately signed some very massive offers that promise to take away hundreds of thousands of metric tons of carbon.
2030 is just some years away, nonetheless, and the corporate’s push into AI and cloud could also be worthwhile — nevertheless it’s made reaching its sustainability targets that a lot more durable.
