On May 8, 2012, Microsoft announced on its official blog a decision to achieve carbon neutrality in its data centers, software labs, air travel, and office buildings beginning July 1, the start of the 2013 fiscal year.
Carbon neutrality refers to the action of balancing the amount of carbon released and offset to achieve net zero carbon emission, or using only renewable energies that do not produce any carbon dioxide. Microsoft’s chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, saw this as an opportunity to infuse carbon awareness and a potential for pushing the responsibility for improving energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions and increasing use of renewable energy. The announcement is a result of the expiration of the 2009 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% per unit by 2012 (which was met by Microsoft), and “was part of a global strategy of how to think about the role of information technology for enabling energy efficiency both within IT but also more broadly,” according to Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist.
Microsoft will impose a ‘carbon fee chargeback model,’ administrated by its Chief Financial Officer on itself, a carbon price based on market pricing for renewable energy and carbon offsets for emissions generated, applicable to its operations in 100 countries. Divisions would be rewarded for increasing energy efficiency and purchasing renewable sources of power to reduce their environmental impact. The company, seeing this as an opportunity to make a change in the world, plans to construct pilot buildings on its Redmond campus using software solutions to make buildings more energy efficient. They are currently working with CarbonSystems, an Australian-based company, to implement the Enterprise Sustainability web-based Platform, an automatic capture and extraction of environment data from multiple sources, uncovering opportunities to identify how to reduce carbon footprint.
With this announcement, Microsoft became a part of over 100 companies committed to green initiatives. Last April, the Environmental Protection Agency ranked Microsoft as the third biggest customer for green power in the United States, with 46% of its power coming from renewable sources. Greenpeace’s Senior analyst, Gary Cook, remarked that this was a good ‘first step,’ for Microsoft but wanted the company to start looking at transitioning to clean energy, encouraging Microsoft to follow Facebook’s lead and choose renewable energy when building data centers. The plan as written, added Cook, still allows Microsoft to keep building data centers that rely on coal. Time will prove if Microsoft will be successful in pursuing this plan and in improving its environmental track record.
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