New investment in direct air capture firm Climeworks just one milestone since landmark pledge to tackle tech giant's historic emissions
On the anniversary of its pledge to become a 'carbon negative' company, Microsoft has provided a snapshot of its decarbonisation progress to date, revealing it curbed its absolute emissions by six per cent last year while purchasing 1.3 million metric tonnes of carbon removal credits through its first offset tender process.
The tech giant also confirmed that Swiss direct air capture start-up Climeworks is just one of more than a dozen suppliers Microsoft selected to work with to help put it on track to meet carbon goals, which include the high profile pledge to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the firm has produced in its lifetime by 2050, and becoming a 'carbon negative' company from 2030.
In addition to selecting Climeworks through a request for proposals for removal projects issued last summer, Microsoft said it has also invested in the pioneering firm through the $1bn Climate Innovation Fund launched last January. The funding will help Climeworks scale up a project in Iceland that aims to suck carbon dioxide out of the air, mix it with water, and pump it underground.
Microsoft revealed it received 189 proposals to deliver up to 55 million metric tonnes of carbon removal after it issued its maiden request for proposals for offsets last summer, in the end opting to support 26 nature-based and technology projects that are collectively aiming to remove 1.3 million tonnes of carbon.
In a blog post, company president Brad Smith said the majority of solutions Microsoft selected were short-term and nature-based, for instance through reforestation and soil restoration projects in the US, Peru, and Nicaragua. However, he noted the company its preference was to support longer-lasting, technological solutions not broadly available on the market today, such as the technology being pioneered by Climeworks.
Microsoft has shared its learnings from the request for proposals selection process in a white paper, a move Smith said was designed to help accelerate other firms' carbon removal programmes and help improve understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different types of offsets.
"Today there is no real existing carbon removal ecosystem and the world must build a new market on an unprecedented scale and timeline, from nearly scratch," Smith wrote. "This will be incredibly hard, requiring integrity, public-private coordination, and heavy investment simultaneously."
The move comes in the same week as the international Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets headed up by former Bank of England boss Mark Carney published recommendations on how to expand the supply of credible carbon offset credits. However, the proposals received a mixed welcome, with some campaign groups warning there was still a considerable risk that carbon offset projects would fail to deliver promised emissions reductions and would distract from the need to cut direct emissions.
Microsoft also revealed this week it had slashed its emissions by six per cent, or 730,000 metric tonnes, over the last year. Smith acknowledged the reduction was due in part to coronavirus-related impacts on corporate travel and economic activity, but he also stressed that the extension of the company's internal carbon tax to include Scope 3 supply chain emissions from last July had incentivised teams to encourage their suppliers to reduce emissions from products.
From July next year, executive pay is also set to be tied to progress against specific climate goals for the first time, in a bid to further embed the firm's decarbonisation mission across its operations, Smith said.
The report comes in the same week as Microsoft came under fire from researchers for a perceived failure to leverage its significant economic influence to advocate for policies critical to steering a net zero emission economy. Research published by think tank InfluenceMap calculated that collectively Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft spent less than four per cent of their public policy advocacy at the federal level in the US between 2019 and 2020 on climate-related policies, with a similarly limited amount of time spent in Europe on lobbying for bolder climate action.
The company has also come under fire for its work supplying artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing services to the oil and gas sector designed in part to help firms "increase efficiencies". Critics have pointed out these contracts are at odds with Microsoft's claim to be committed to global climate goals, which suggest that oil and gas production must be significantly curbed over the coming decade.