Hardware Compliance

Our products comply with, and in some cases exceed, all applicable environmental guidelines and regulations. We are committed to advancing sustainability in our product design, packaging and distribution — without sacrificing quality, customer safety or innovation.

Our Substance Policy

At Microsoft, we take the environment very seriously. As such, we're committed to meeting regulation requirements and taking voluntary steps to minimize the environmental impact of our products and global operations. We have also adopted the Precautionary Principle (.docx).

Documentation
Part of our environmental commitment revolves around full disclosure of materials used in our products. Although our restricted substances specifications tell you which materials are NOT in our products, we take disclosure a step further and require our suppliers to identify which substances DO go into our products.

Testing
For a number of banned substances, we require that test reports are submitted regularly. ...continue reading

Our Substance Policy

We also voluntary submit our products to independent, third-party testing throughout the development and manufacturing processes.

Audit
To ensure our supply operations comply with our environmental policies, we periodically visit manufacturing facilities around the world to conduct in-person audits. We also conduct internal audits to review our product development practices and identify areas for improvement.

End of Life
Our environmental responsibility doesn't end when a product is sold. We provide recyclers with information they need to recycle our products safely and connect customers with local recycling options, and we are constantly looking for ways to expand recycling programs around the world.
Learn more about our substance policy

Sustainability in Our Packaging

Microsoft continually looks for ways reduce its overall footprint through environmentally sustainable packaging and distribution practices.

For instance, compared with Windows Vista, our Windows 7 packaging weighed less, had fewer components, used paperboard from sustainably managed forests, and was easier to separate and recycle. In addition, our mobile mouse packaging was redesigned in a way that achieved an average volume reduction of about 12 percent.

The cornerstone of Microsoft's global packaging sustainability strategy is our work with the Australia Packaging Covenant (APC) — a voluntary initiative by government and industry that, through a number of methods, seeks to minimize packaging's impact on the environment. See our Action Plan for the Australian Packaging Covenant (.pdf)

See how we're redefining software and hardware packaging (.pdf)