Today, companies of all sizes are looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Climate experts agree that action is needed now. In fact, some organizations are not only trying to reduce emissions but reach “net zero” emissions, meaning that they remove as much carbon as they emit.
Is “net zero” achievable? Microsoft thinks it absolutely is and plans to be carbon negative by 2030 and, by 2050, to remove all the carbon the company has emitted since 1975, the year it was founded.
Microsoft’s Carbon Negative Plan
How will Microsoft accomplish this impressive and inspiring initiative to eliminate and reverse its carbon emissions? Here are a few steps they are taking:
- Take responsibility: cut emissions by more than half by the year 2030 and remove more carbon than emitted.
- Invest: $1 Billion of capital in a new Climate Innovation Fund to accelerate the development of carbon reduction and removal technologies.
- Be transparent: commitment to publish an annual Environmental Sustainability Report.
- Advocate: support new public policy initiatives related to carbon reduction and removal.
- Innovate: create new jobs and enlist employees to help advance sustainability innovation.
What are carbon emissions?
Carbon emissions are classified into three categories and here are some basic examples:
- Scope 1 emissions: direct emissions from your activities such as exhaust from the car you drive every day or your company trucks transporting products.
- Scope 2 emissions: indirect emissions from producing the electricity or heat you use.
- Scope 3 emissions: indirect emissions that come from all those other activities like producing the food you eat or manufacturing the products you buy. Scope 3 emissions can be massive for businesses because they account for the entire supply chain and emissions produced both by the business and the consumers who use the products.
What Can Your Company Do?
Western Computer is proud to be a premier partner with Microsoft and we have aligned many of our cloud initiatives and sustainability efforts to theirs. Like many of you reading this, we aren’t the size of Microsoft, but know we can still contribute. Perhaps sustainability is already a core principle of your business or maybe you are at the beginning of your journey to reduce your company’s carbon footprint.
Remote Workers
One way we are committed to addressing our carbon footprint is by encouraging and supporting a largely remote workforce. This reduces the number of offices and buildings we need, which subsequently reduces our carbon emissions.
Embrace the Cloud
Cloud computing also plays an important role in sustainability and offers the potential for big savings on carbon emissions. It’s one of the many reasons we prefer cloud-based solutions for our own operations, as well as for our customers’ businesses. Let’s reduce our carbon footprints together!
Many studies have documented the environmental and financial savings of cloud computing versus running equivalent software on servers located on premises. Savings can range from 30% (for larger and already efficient larger companies) to as much as a whopping 90% for smaller previously non-optimized organizations.
When we all work on this international challenge together, we believe we can achieve great things—including reaching net zero in the future. We hope you will join us on this journey.
About the Author
More Content by Amanda Sherry
