Environmental sustainability

Our environmental sustainability work focuses in three primary areas: carbon and energy, water and ecosystems (including agriculture, biodiversity, conservation), and waste minimization. We work to reduce our impact within our operations, create sustainable products and devices, innovate with our partners to solve environmental challenges with technology, and drive policies that help create a more sustainable future.

At Microsoft, we believe in the sustainable management of the water resources we use across our operations We’re focused on increasing our understanding of water-related risks and business impacts and how those affect the communities we serve. We set meaningful goals, improve our water efficiency, and advance innovative solutions to water challenges. The Silicon Valley campus will be the first tech campus with net-zero water certification, all the non-drinking water in the building will come from rainfall or on-site recycled water.

Our internal carbon fee has helped us achieve 100 percent carbon neutrality since 2012. The carbon fee funds our work to improve operational efficiency and enables us to buy clean energy and invest in carbon offset community projects.

We aspire to use our purchasing power, research and development and technology to change how Microsoft – and ultimately the world – consumes energy. We’ve purchased more than 1 gigawatt of renewable energy and have renewable energy projects on three continents. In our datacenters, we pilot cutting-edge fuel cell research and energy-storage batteries inside. Beyond our operations, we work with customers, partners and policymakers to enable greater change. We have also increased the energy efficiency of our devices and leveraged the energy saving capabilities of Windows 10 to provide a better user experience while reducing consumer energy use. Lastly, our Factory of the Future solar panel installation, combined with the smart building system in one of our largest supplier’s facilities is projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2e) by approximately three million pounds annually.

We design our products, buildings, and operations to promote resource reduction and reuse, enabling a more resource-efficient and productive economy. We use life cycle assessments and value stream analysis to improve product and packaging resource efficiency. On average, we have reduced new product package weight by 20 percent through a combination of right-sizing packaging to the product and introducing new lightweight materials. Microsoft is a member of over 150 recycling programs worldwide, covering electronics, batteries, and packaging. Beyond our products, our Puget Sound campus is zero-waste certified, reducing overall waste generation and diverting at least 90 percent of our operational waste from landfills.