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Microsoft sets out to become 'carbon negative' by 2030

Tech titan reveals ambitious goal to erase its entire carbon footprint by 2050

Microsoft threw down the gauntlet to its peers with its plans to become a carbon-negative company by 2030.

CEO Satya Nadella (pictured, right) was joined by president Brad Smith and CFO Amy Hood to outline the firm's roadmap to becoming a carbon-negative company by 2030, which will include "aggressive" cutting of its carbon emissions by more than 50 per cent in the next 10 years and expanding its "internal carbon fee" of $15 (£11.50) per metric ton to its supply chain.

"While tech intensity can be a driver of economic growth, the solution is not simply to build technology for technology's sake, it's to ensure that technology is inclusive, trusted and is a creating a sustainable world," Nadella declared when announcing the news.

"If the last decade has taught us anything, it's that technology built without these principles does far more harm than good. No one company can solve this macro-challenge alone, but as a global tech company we have a particular responsibility to do our part.

"The scientific consensus is clear: the world today is confronted with an urgent carbon crisis. If we don't curb emissions and temperatures continue to climb, the science tells us the results will be devastating."

Microsoft also aims to eradicate its entire historical carbon footprint, pledging to remove from the environment all the carbon it emitted either directly or by electricity consumption since its foundation in 1975.

Nadella explained that the rationale behind the reveal of a $1bn Climate Innovation Fund is to develop new technology over the next four years that will aid the process of carbon reduction, as well as carbon capturing and removal.

"We must take responsibility to address the carbon footprint of our own tech and company but we will also go beyond that," Nadella continued.

"This is the decade for urgent action - for Microsoft and for all of us - to take bold steps forward to address our most pressing challenges. Each of us must do more in order to collectively achieve more."

Microsoft president Smith (pictured above left) detailed the seven principles the tech giant will use as guidance as it embarks on its carbon-reduction journey, which includes using science throughout its mission, developing technology to assist customers and suppliers in reducing their own carbon footprints and publishing an Environmental Sustainability Report annually.

He noted that Microsoft emits 16 million tons of carbon directly and indirectly annually and that this carbon will sit in the atmosphere for two millennia.

"When carbon is emitted into the atmosphere, it persists there for 2,000 or more years," he said.

"As a business, if we have a tough quarter, we can bounce back the next quarter; but if we think about the first carbon molecules that were emitted in England's Midlands when the steam engine was invented in the 1750s, those are going to be hanging around for 17 more centuries unless we find a way to do something new.

"This year humanity will emit 50 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. It is a problem of enormous scale and extraordinary longevity and effect."

Not all were convinced that the tech titan can resolve its sustainable ambitions with its lucrative contracts within the oil and gas industry.

Elizabeth Jardin, senior corporate campaigner at Greenpeace, said that while the news indicates a "serious and holistic" approach from Microsoft, its ties to the gas and oil industry present an obstacle to achieving its environmental goals.

"While there is a lot to celebrate in Microsoft's announcement, a gaping hole remains unaddressed: its expanding efforts to help fossil fuel companies drill more oil and gas with machine learning and other AI technologies," she stated.