Microsoft announces 'carbon negative' pledge

Microsoft recently announced plans to remove all the carbon from the environment that it has emitted since 1975. It wants to get this done by 2050 and plans to be carbon negative by 2030. This will give Microsoft 20 years to wipe their footprint completely.

As said in this BBC article, Microsoft is leading the industry in this move - Amazon has pledged to go carbon negative by 2040. While this is still good news, it shows that Microsoft sees this as an urgent issue that needs to be done as soon as possible.

Following this pledge, Microsoft set aside 1 billion dollars to a climate innovation fund to track carbon-tackling technologies. Part of the plan also includes seeding new forests, soil carbon sequestration, direct air capture, and bio-energy with carbon capture. With tech companies accounting for 3.6% of the world's greenhouse gasses in 2020 with projections of up to 14% by 2040, having Microsoft lead the industry on sustainable business practices gives this statistic some hope.

I'm delighted that Microsoft is trying to rectify the considerable problem of e-waste and hopefully will propel sustainable business practices further into the mainstream. If Microsoft can accomplish these goals, we can only hope it shows other businesses you can do this.