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The new report on the durability of Microsoft, published at the end of last week, shows how a heavy carbon economy can weigh on a company that wants to be carbon light.
Since 2020, its carbon emissions have increased by 23.4%, mainly the result of the mouth Data Center Buildout To support its increasing cloud and AI operations. The purchase of enough clean electricity is in fact the easy part – it is the installations themselves which are loaded with materials and products with high intensity of carbon, including chips in steel, concrete and computer science.
“We reflect the challenges that the world must overcome to develop and use greener concrete, steel, fuels and fleas,” Microsoft spokesperson for e-mail told E-mail. “These are the largest engines of our challenges in scope 3.”
The emissions of scope 3 are those which are outside the direct control of a company, including raw materials, transport and goods and services purchased. The emissions in scope 3 represent almost the entire carbon footprint of Microsoft, just over 97% for the 2024 financial year, which the 2025 sustainability ratio covers.
Microsoft’s Scope 3 profile is dominated by equipment goods and goods and services purchased, both contributing to around three quarters of the company’s total carbon emissions.
The construction of data centers was the main engine behind the emissions of Microsoft Scope 3. The steel used in buildings comes from a supply chain which is based on the high stoves heated by fossil fuels, and the concrete used in the foundation is the product of a chemical reaction which is both fueled by and a carbon dioxide producer. Some startups work to decarbonize both steel And cementAnd Microsoft is an investor In space, but it will be years before these bets will have a significant impact.
Carbon emissions are also embodied in computer fleas within the data center. Semiconductor lithography depends on chemicals that have extremely high global warming potential. For example, hexafluoroethane, which is used to climb the characteristics on chips, is a powerful greenhouse gas, with 1 tonne generating as much warming as 9,200 tonnes carbon dioxide.
Even in green electricity, which is easier to find, the obstacles have appeared because the data centers are not always built near abundant clean energy sources. For this reason, Microsoft had trouble finding sources near electricity with zero carbon, forcing it to count on purchases elsewhere. “Our electricity consumption has developed faster than the networks where we operate have decarbonized,” said the spokesperson.
Overall, Microsoft’s emissions in 2024 were slightly down compared to 2023, which suggests that the company improves in the construction of data centers with lower climatic impacts. However, it has a long way to go to reach its 2030 goal to eliminate more carbon pollution it generates. According to his own forecasts, Microsoft will have to reduce his emissions by more than half while considerably increasing his carbon elimination efforts.
There are signs that Microsoft makes progress on both fronts. It was one of the main investors in And Buyers of Solar energy in recent months, and its zero carbon electricity portfolio is now 34 capacity gigawatts. In addition, he recently signed some very big Treats that promises to remove millions of metric tonnes of carbon.
2030 is a few years old, however, and the company’s push in AI and the Cloud can be profitable – but it has achieved its even more difficult durability objectives.
