From pledges to progress: What Microsoft is doing to support a sustainable world

Hello, and welcome to the place that will give you a glimpse into how Microsoft is helping the world move from pledges to progress and build a more sustainable world. As the 27th annual United Nations conference on Climate Change kicks off in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, we’ll be here with regular updates – don’t forget to keep checking in.??

Dec 14, 2022

Almost a?month on from COP27, leaders and decision-makers are reflecting on the conference and what needs to happen next.?

One of those leaders is Elisabeth Brinton , Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Sustainability. In a recent piece written for the Microsoft Industry Blogs site, Brinton gives us an insight into her experience of the conference and the “collective momentum toward decarbonization and resilience” she witnessed?there.?

“We left COP27 with a feeling of optimism that will be key for forging our collective path forward,” she writes.??

For Microsoft, that path forward involves delivering solutions to the challenges and opportunity areas?discussed at COP27.?These include:?helping our customers better report Scope 3 emissions;?prioritizing co-investment and co-innovation to help organizations grow sustainably and cost-effectively;?and engaging more deeply with supply chain and partner data to create new opportunities.?

Read more in Brinton’s blog:?

?

Nov 28, 2022

Brad Smith ,? 微软 Vice Chair and President?helped launch the EVALUATE app from? Terra Praxis ?at?#COP27 .?Watch the launch of the app that enables?coal plant owners to assess their plants for conversion to zero-carbon energy.?

Nov 18, 2022

The ethics and effectiveness of carbon markets are often controversial. Could they direct capital to natural solutions and local communities as well as help businesses support larger climate goals? Or are they doing more harm than good? Elizabeth Willmott, director of the Carbon Program at Microsoft Corporation talked to?TED Countdown and explains Microsoft's approach to carbon markets.?

Nov. 15, 2022?

Private previews of the Global Renewables Watch were launched at COP27. The platform – a collaboration between Microsoft, satellite imagery provider Planet , and environmental organization The Nature Conservancy – is a first-of-its-kind living atlas to map the world’s utility-scale solar and wind installations. Using artificial intelligence and satellite imagery, it allows users to evaluate clean energy transition progress and track trends over time.?

Microsoft chief sustainability officer for the Middle East and Africa, Sherif Tawfik , spoke at the event. Learn more about the tool in this video, posted by Microsoft's Chief Data Scientist Juan M. Lavista Ferres. ?

Nov. 14, 2022?

?A move from the Biden-Harris administration will require federal contractors receiving more than $50 million in contracts annually to make various emissions disclosures and set science-based reduction targets.?

The Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule will require contractors to disclose their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, along with Scope 3 emissions in “relevant categories”. They will also have to disclose climate-related financial risks. This makes the U.S. the first national government to strengthen its supply chain by ensuring its major suppliers have emissions reductions plans in line with the Paris Agreement.?

?Nov. 12, 2022?

?Today at COP27, Microsoft signed the 1.5°C Business Sign-On Statement . Organized by the We Mean Business Coalition and The B Team , along with various other partners, this statement is designed to show policymakers at COP27 that we remain committed to limiting global warming.??

While the eyes of the world are on climate negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh and political leaders of the world’s major economies gather in Bali, Indonesia next week for the annual G20 summit, we want to make it clear we stand by the objectives of the Paris Agreement and Glasgow Climate Pact.?

In the words of the statement – the science remains unchanged: 1.5°C is a limit not a target.?

Nov. 10, 2022?

The absence of a unified method to measure and report carbon emissions is a real hindrance to progress and understanding around climate change. Inconsistencies in carbon accounting make it hard to compare and share data and measure the impact of our actions.? Microsoft firmly believes that we can’t manage what we can’t measure.?

The Carbon Call is a collective action, of which Microsoft is a part, to address gaps in existing carbon accounting methods and help create reliable and interoperable systems of measurement. Today, the ClimateWorks Foundation, a philanthropic platform to help accelerate climate solutions, hosted a webcast on the Carbon Call at COP27 and announced new members bringing the total above 60. The foundation also shared four key challenges it is aiming to solve.??

Nov. 9, 2022

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith talked to Protocol on the tech industry’s ability to become carbon negative among other sustainability initiatives. He said, “If we blaze the trail, we’ll discover and then show others a way that they can get onboard. I think we need to create a net zero world by 2050, but we need to create a carbon-negative world by 2060 and actually even raise our ambition.”?

Also on Wednesday, John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, announced the Energy Transition Accelerator. The accelerator is a plan for a new carbon credit program that will help mobilize private capital in order to help middle-income countries make the transition away from coal and towards renewable energy.?

In a conversation with?Protocol , Michelle Patron, Microsoft's director of sustainability policy, explained how the company's interest in the Energy Transition Accelerator aligns with the company's energy procurement strategy which is inclusive of the Global South.?

"We've seen clean energy investments in the developing world be flat since Paris, so we need investments to go up, and we need the costs to come down. And the enablers that we see at Microsoft to do that are markets, policy, and skills, and that's why this type of initiative is important," Patron said.

Nov. 8, 2022

“Our planet is sending a distress signal,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening of the 2022 UN Conference on Climate Change (COP27 ). He underlined the importance of using COP27 to drive action on the “immediate and ever-growing risks of climate emergency”.?

Through its $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund, Microsoft is aiming to make progress by supporting promising new technologies and ensuring that developing and underserved communities benefit from climate solutions. Climeworks is one of the portfolio companies.?

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith met fellow members of the First Movers Coalition to discuss carbon dioxide removal and what businesses can do about it. The coalition is a global initiative to unite companies in industries that will be harder to decarbonize – such as steel and cement production – to help commercialize zero carbon technologies.?

As one of the first companies to source carbon removal , Microsoft is keen to boost collective market knowledge about the technologies available and its experience of procurement in a relatively nascent market.

Nov. 7, 2022

12:01 am PT: The eyes of the world turn to Egypt as the 2022 UN Conference on Climate Change (COP27) kicks off in Sharm El-Sheikh. Through its role as?Strategic Principal Sponsor , Microsoft aims to help people and organizations better understand how technology can help solve many of today’s complex climate challenges.?

One way technology can do this is by supporting the needs of the Global South – countries with lower levels of economic and industrial development. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, which contribute to problems such as food insecurity and exacerbate existing challenges including poverty, decision-makers in the Global South need access to reliable climate data to inform adaption and resilience projects. Not only is there insufficient reliable climate data in the Global South, but there is also a significant lack of data scientists to work with the data available. Research shows that there are approximately five data scientists in the Global North for everyone in the Global South – meaning there is a significant gap in the Global South’s ability to turn climate data into insights for decision-making and action.?

Today, Microsoft shared details of an expansion of the AI for Good Research Lab to Kenya and Egypt to help close this data divide. You can read more here:

After this announcement of the first global expansion of the?#AIForGood ?Research Lab to Nairobi and Cairo building a new team of data scientists on the ground in Africa that will work to turn data into climate action. We asked?Juan M. Lavista Ferres ,?Microsoft 's Chief Data Scientist why data is so vital in the fight against?#ClimateChange ?

Nov. 4, 2022

Last week, more than 100 CEOs of multinational organizations – members of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders – shared an open letter for world leaders meeting at COP27. The letter, which was signed by Vice Chair and President of Microsoft Brad Smith, outlines the actions the leaders believe governments and businesses need to take to ensure the private sector’s potential in limiting global warming is fully realized. Read the letter here:

Nov. 3, 2022

When it comes to working our way out of the climate crisis, we’ll need all of the innovative solutions we can muster.

That was the theme of Brad Smith ’s keynote speech at the 2022 edition of the annual technology conference Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. The Vice Chair and President of Microsoft spoke to the audience of technology CEOs, start-up founders and policymakers about the importance of ingenuity and inventiveness in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Elsewhere, climate action nonprofit TerraPraxis announced that it will launch the first digital application to decarbonize coal plants at COP27. Microsoft helped develop the application, Evaluate, which is built on Microsoft Azure and designed to help plant owners and investors analyze how coal-fired power plants could be upgraded to carbon-free energy sources.

And Microsoft announced Environmental Credit Service, a Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solution that gives increased visibility into the provenance and quality of carbon credits. Read more here:

Nov. 2, 2022

If companies are to meet their climate pledges they’re going to need a workforce with the right skills. But right now, there’s a global shortage of this talent.

A new Microsoft report released today, Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap: Helping Businesses Move from Pledges to Progress , addresses this issue. Based on research conducted by Microsoft and Boston Consulting Group, the report highlights this skills gap and offers concrete recommendations for business leaders and policymakers on what can be done about it.

It’s a challenge that calls for sweeping changes, including equipping workers with specialized sustainability skills and embedding sustainability science into the day-to-day operations of organizations. But it can be solved – with collaboration, data, and a huge global effort.

Ahead of COP27, Microsoft also shared news today of the latest improvements to efficiency in its datacenters across areas such as waste, renewables, and ecosystems. Read more about these improvements here:

What has Microsoft learned on its sustainability journey so far? Earlier this month,?Elisabeth Brinton , Microsoft CVP Sustainability, captured several lessons from Microsoft's sustainability efforts.

Sept. 22, 2022

At the end of September, More than 160 countries and 3,900 companies around the world have issued climate pledges. However, with a new United Nations Environment Programme report stating that the world is not on track to reach the Paris Agreement goals – and calling for immediate collective, multilateral action – the need to move from pledges to progress is clear. But what does that look like in practice?

Microsoft – which believes it can help connect what technology can do with what the world needs it to do – breaks this transition down into three key areas:

• Advancing the sustainability of our own business
• Innovating our way out of the climate crisis and helping our customers achieve more
• Enabling and supporting a sustainable world.

During the UN General Assembly, held in New York City in September 2022, Microsoft made some key announcements on how it plans to do this.

Two papers were released: one on carbon policy and one on electricity policy, which help illustrate Microsoft's principles and priority areas clearly and transparently – including how the company will engage with governments around the world in these areas.

Microsoft also announced a partnership with?Planet ?and?The Nature Conservancy to map the entirety of the world’s solar and wind supply, producing a first-of-its-kind Global Renewables Watch. This tool will allow users to evaluate clean energy transition progress and track trends over a period of time, rather than as a moment in time.?

Sept. 15, 2022

Back in September, Microsoft and climate action nonprofit TerraPraxis formed a strategic collaboration to repower 2,400 coal-fired power plants. It will see Microsoft help build and deploy a set of tools to automate the design and regulatory approval needed to decarbonize coal facilities with nuclear power.