Our first annual sustainability report, released in January 2021, showed early progress on our commitments to become a carbon negative, water positive, zero waste company by 2030 and protect ecosystems by building a Planetary Computer.

From pledges to progress

While 2021 presented us with some new learnings, we’ve also made some great progress that we share in more detail in this report. A few examples that illuminate the diversity of our work include the following.

• Four datacenters are Zero Waste certified, with new certifications for the San Antonio, Texas and Quincy, Washington datacenters and renewed certifications for our Boydton, Virginia and Dublin, Ireland locations.
• We announced the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability to provide comprehensive, integrated, and automated sustainability management for organizations at any stage of the sustainability journey.
• Through an investment from our Climate Innovation Fund, we’re helping LanzaJet complete their sustainable fuels plant in Georgia—a move that will help decarbonize our datacenters as well as the airline industry.
• While overall device emissions grew because of higher sales and usage, we reduced the carbon footprint for several of our products. Surface Pro 8 is one of the most energy efficient Surface Pros ever and we introduced Energy Saver, a new low-power standby mode for Xbox consoles.
• We granted $100 million to Breakthrough Energy Catalyst to accelerate the development of climate solutions the world needs to reach net-zero across four key areas: direct air capture, green hydrogen, long duration energy storage, and sustainable aviation fuel.

With net zero becoming the new normal—more than 1,500 companies with total net revenue of $11.4 trillion have pledged that they will become carbon neutral or net zero—the world must move from climate pledges to climate progress.

As a leading technology provider of sustainable solutions, Microsoft stands ready to support our customers, partners, and the world in the move towards a net zero, environmentally sustainable future. And while the shape of what the future holds is unknown, we will continue to build the foundations needed today and do the work that needs to be done to deliver on our commitments.

— Brad Smith, President and Vice Chair

                                &

Dr. Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer

<Microsoft 2021 Environmental Sustainability Report>