Early this year, Microsoft rocked the sustainability world by announcing it was going not only carbon neutral but carbon negative by 2030. What is carbon negative and how will Microsoft achieve this goal?
Microsoft says it wants to achieve net zero carbon emissions. It plans to not only reduce its carbon footprint but eliminate all the carbon it emits. To do this, it will cut its carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, both for direct emissions and for its entire supply and value chain. It will fund this in part by expanding an internal carbon fee to start charging not only direct emissions, but those from its supply and value chains.
It is also launching an initiative to use Microsoft technology to help suppliers and customers around the world reduce their own carbon footprints. Microsoft will be creating a $1 billion climate innovation fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies. It wants to pull out all of the carbon it’s produced in the atmosphere since the company was launched in 1975.
If carbon negative is out of your company’s reach (for now), consider carbon neutrality, which is removing the amount of carbon your company, and its supply chain, put into it. Carbon neutrality is achieved by reducing energy usage, choosing green products, and offsetting carbon by supporting external projects that reduce carbon emissions.
Fortune recently magazine produced a list of Change the World All Stars, companies that are on pace to achieve carbon neutrality. Here are a few examples:
IBM
IBM has been gradually converting to green power; in 2018, the tech giant derived 37.9% of its energy from renewable sources. It has also been inventive about using less energy. For example, in recent years its Hybrid Cloud program has consolidated its 42 data centers down to just six, cutting energy-consumption by about two-thirds.
Intel
Semiconductor manufacturing is extremely water-intensive, and Intel—which is headquartered in drought-prone California—has made water conservation a central pillar of its corporate citizenship. The company says that in 2017, it restored 80% of the water it used to local communities and watersheds, either by treating and returning it to its pre-use state, or by contributing to supply and conservation projects that offset the water it used. Intel aims to reach 100% restoration by 2025.
Walmart
The five-time Change the World list honoree has used its leverage as the world’s largest company to become a leader in sustainable practices. The retail giant has sharply reduced its own waste: In fiscal 2019, it says, it diverted away from landfills and incineration 78% of the waste it produced. And Walmart’s Project Gigaton is incentivizing its huge network of suppliers to sharply curb their own greenhouse-gas emissions.
Apple
Apple has long been one of the tech world’s leaders in using renewable energy in manufacturing. More recently, Apple has begun tackling one of its industry’s thornier problems: The fast-growing amount of often-toxic detritus created by discarded electronic gear. Apple in 2017 announced a goal of making all of its products from recycled or renewable material—and eventually, only from such material. In April, it opened its Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, where the company is doing the research that it hopes will get it there. Among its innovations: A robotic recycling system called Daisy, which can disassemble up to 200 iPhones per hour and separate them into their component parts for eventual reuse.
Inspired by these stories? Contact SSC for a sustainability assessment to see where your company can go green.