2020: Microsoft sets goal to be carbon negative by end of the decade.
2023: Microsoft's emissions are 30% higher than in 2020.
Main cause? The relentless push to meet AI demand, which requires new data centers built out of carbon-intensive steel, cement, chips.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-15/microsoft-s-ai-investment-imperils-climate-goal-as-emissions-jump-30
@akshatrathi
More than 96% of Microsoft's emissions are Scope 3 though which is better than most corporations.
Microsoft contracted 1,443,981 metric tons of carbon removal in FY22. They also made first-of-their kind multi-year forward offtake commitments to carbon removal, which could serve as a model for scaling the nascent carbon capture industry.
@GreenFire @akshatrathi And then there's this: https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-buy-power-nuclear-fusion-company-helion-2023-05-10/
I didn't have "software megacorproation gets into the nuclear fusion game" on my bingo card, but I guess that's what's up.
Private U.S. nuclear fusion company Helion Energy will provide Microsoft <a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/MSFT.O/"target="_blank">(MSFT.O)</a> with electricity in about five years, the companies said on Wednesday, in the first such deal for the power source that fuels the sun but has been elusive on Earth.
@GreenFire @akshatrathi The same is likely true of almost all software/services companies: because of the way scopes are defined, almost all of their emissions are in Scope 3. Microsoft is no different there.
Assuming that graph is net emissions, this means their emissions have grown *despite* some amount of carbon removal or accounting.
@pwithnall @akshatrathi
Yes, possibly their emissions have grown from their suppliers or their accounting for emissions is getting more accurate as they have more experience and expertise from being one of the early adopters of trying to do it. I don't know which.
It's better that they're doing it anyways, which is better than almost any other company and that's what makes attacking them for publishing them so bad since that encourages more companies to not report them at all.
We should never take big tech's "greenwashing" seriously. Ever.
@akshatrathi
The goal must be, using the internet instead driving.
Animal existence emitted carbon dioxide.
Shhh, don't confront corporate greenwashing with reality!
@randomvangloboii @akshatrathi If they were serious they would extend Windows 10 support, or port Windows 11 to older machines. Preferably the former, because Windows 10 is better than 11.
Causing the unnecessary replacement of working equipment is the most un-green thing the tech industry does, and they need to be beaten over the head with that fact. Where are the climate protesters outside Microsoft and Google offices?
@akshatrathi Microsoft (and Zoom etc) are companies in one of the few industries that is probably better off with a 2020 vs 2019 baseline for carbon reductions.
A lot of heavy industry and petchem majors are using 2019 as their benchmark year so they don't have to explain an immediate jump up (back to mean) from 2020 for their operations.
@akshatrathi And instead of actually integrating AI in any ways that people will care to use, they simply add a built-in Windows app that can't even properly use system functions, (Copilot) search summaries that take up too much space and only appear when you *don't* want them, and weakly integrate it into Office apps with barely any useful functionality, but a whole lot more server calls.
Guys, just make chatbot interfaces. If I have a question, I'll ask. No annoying popups or bad features.
Then you dont find a shortcut, _you_ build solar and wind installations. Build the sun and wind microsoft, dont go buy some credit, BUILD THE POWER. BE ADULT. BE RESPONSIBLE. SEE THE WORLD.
@akshatrathi How to be a BigTech company:
@akshatrathi not surprised; capitalistic monopolies always find a way to deceive the public such as greenwashing
the data on that graph is the visual depiction of saying that "you'll quit drinking by 2050", then continuing to increase that habit by tenfold
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