By Aaron Tilley and Russell Gold
Microsoft Corp. is pledging to eliminate its carbon emissions
and invest $1 billion as part of a wider climate commitment,
raising the stakes in the corporate race to show greater awareness
of environmental concerns.
The software giant on Thursday said it would become "carbon
negative" by 2030 -- taking more carbon out of the air than its
operations and those of its supply chain produce. This goes a step
beyond promises made by some of its high-profile Silicon Valley
competitors.
By 2050, Microsoft says, it will have eliminated all emissions
it has produced since its founding in 1975.
Companies have been feeling the heat to help reduce greenhouse
gas emissions that contribute to the changing climate. Scientists
at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which
independently track world temperatures, this week said in an annual
report that 2019 was the second-warmest year on record.
Microsoft said it has been carbon neutral since 2012, in part by
purchasing so-called offsets, which finance projects that prevent
further emissions, such as preserving forests. It now plans to have
100% renewable energy running its facilities by 2025 and completely
electrify its campus vehicle fleet by 2030.
"One of the conclusions we've come to is that this is an area
where neutrality simply is not enough, and we need to be more
ambitious," Microsoft President Brad Smith told a group of
journalists this week.
Mr. Smith said the Xbox gaming system is one of Microsoft's
biggest carbon footprint contributors. The environmental pledge, he
said, will drive efforts such as making the devices more
energy-efficient.
Of course, Microsoft isn't a major manufacturer, making it
easier for it to tackle emissions compared with companies that are
more focused on manufacturing. Microsoft said its operations and
suppliers would emit 16 million metric tons of carbon in 2020. Dow
Chemical Co. has to account for about 113.5 million metric
tons.
Companies pledging to actually take more carbon out of the air
than they put in are rare. Software maker Intuit Inc. said in
September it would take such a step by 2030. CDP, an international
nonprofit organization that presses companies to disclose their
environmental impact, says only two companies in its database have
pledged to reduce emissions in a verifiable manner to reach a
net-zero level: Swedish property developer Castellum AB and German
professional services firm Sustainable AG.
This "is at the vanguard of corporate climate action," said Sue
Reid, vice president of energy and climate at Ceres, a nonprofit
that urges investors and companies to set sustainability goals.
"There are a small number of companies that have gone beyond net
zero."
Amazon.com Inc. last year said it would add a fleet of 100,000
electric delivery vehicles in a drive to be carbon-neutral by 2040.
That requires Amazon to have no net release of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere by either offsetting emissions through actions such
as planting trees or by eliminating emissions altogether.
Amazon has said it expects 80% of its energy use to come from
renewable sources by 2024, up from 40% at the time of its
environmental pledge.
To become carbon negative across its entire operations,
Microsoft plans to use technologies that remove carbon and store it
for long periods underground, in the soil or in a biosphere. That
pledge could prove difficult since much of this technology is still
maturing and it is unclear whether it is scalable. Globally, there
is only capacity to capture and store 40 million metric tons in a
variety of industrial and experimental projects.
Julio Friedmann, a research scholar at Columbia University's
Center on Global Energy Policy and a former Energy Department
official in the Obama administration, said companies investing in
carbon-negative technology could have a competitive advantage in
years to come if future policies require companies to limit their
emissions.
"The thing I find most exciting about what Microsoft is trying
to do here is that the future is made one brick at a time, and
they're going to buy the first bricks. They're going to help create
an industry by procurement," he said.
Microsoft said it would provide $1 billion to the Climate
Innovation Fund over the next four years to back development of
carbon-removal technology.
The environmental commitments are only the latest area where
tech companies are competing to say they are addressing a range of
societal ills. Microsoft last year said it would spend $500 million
on new housing in the Seattle area, around its Redmond, Wash.,
headquarters. Alphabet Inc.'s Google followed with a $1 billion
commitment to housing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Apple Inc. in
November committed $2.5 billion to affordable housing in
California.
But Microsoft's environmental stance has faced criticism over
the company's links to the oil-and-gas industry. Over the past
year, Microsoft has struck deals with Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron
Corp., and Schlumberger Ltd. to move their data to the cloud.
Microsoft, like with many tech companies, is having to contend
with a more activist workforce pushing for a more progressive
position across environmental, social and political issues.
Microsoft employees have criticized the company's courting of the
oil-and-gas industry to push adoption of its cloud computing
service, Azure.
In response to some of those energy deals, a group of Microsoft
employee activists said, via Twitter, "It's no longer possible for
us to ignore Microsoft's complicity in the climate crisis."
Microsoft declined to comment on the tweet.
Write to Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com and Russell Gold
at russell.gold@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 16, 2020 12:44 ET (17:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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