Working Together With Our Customers and Partners on a Net Zero Future For All

RODRIGO KEDE LIMA

PRESIDENT OF MICROSOFT LATIN AMERICA

CLIMATE CHANGE and the collective responsibility we bear in addressing this issue is no longer up for debate. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased more than 20 percent in less than 40 years, owing largely to human activities. This represents well over 50 percent of the total increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.

The world’s climate experts agree we all must urgently reduce our carbon emissions. As Microsoft’s operations and business continue to grow globally, we face the critical challenge of reducing our environmental footprint as we scale our computing power to advance digital economies, research, and inclusive economic opportunities. To address this, we have a set of bold company commitments – to be carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030; and protect ecosystems by building a Planetary Computer. We believe technology can help solve the world’s greatest challenges and we are accelerating progress toward a more sustainable future through broad decarbonization, advanced research, and helping our customers and partners build sustainable solutions.

Data is now one of the greatest pain points for our customers

We can’t ignore that the world increasingly runs on data. In fact, the demand for data and digital services will only continue to grow exponentially in the next decade, with the International Energy Agency forecasting that internet traffic will double by 2022.

Datacenters are the compute engine of the cloud. Beyond powering 95 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 businesses, the Microsoft cloud is the trusted cloud for everyday digital experiences at work and at home, and even more importantly for critical digital infrastructure—from life and safety services, educational institutions, and governments, to advancing scientific research surrounding the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change.

Interestingly, our customers tell us daily that managing data is one of the biggest pain points in their sustainability journey. There is a torrent of data from all areas of the value chain, and unfortunately much of it is often poor quality, siloed and difficult to share these days. Providing the forward-thinking guidance and innovative technology solutions that will help our customers overcome these challenges is essential to our net zero goals as a company.

Datacenters must be part of the solution

Our goal at Microsoft is not only to be carbon negative by 2030, but to remove all the carbon we have ever emitted into the environment— either directly or through electrical consumption—by 2050. To achieve this, datacenters must be part of our solution for broad decarbonization.

As we work to shrink Microsoft’s cloud footprint and advance our sustainable datacenters toward a carbon-negative future, we’re also innovating with the aim to help our customers tackle challenges brought by their vast computing-power needs. Our aim is to advance research in liquid cooling, and develop waterless cooling options. We’ve also created first-of-their-kind Microsoft Circular Centers that will help us extend the lifecycle of servers and reuse them to reduce waste. And, in order to ensure our buildings are energy and resource efficient, we’ve committed to certifying all our owned datacenters with LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental) Gold status.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability (MCfS) is an extensible software-as-a-service solution that helps us record, report, and reduce our organization’s environmental impact through automated data connections and actionable insights. Today MCfS is helping us advance in our efforts, while collaborating with, empowering, and supporting other global organizations to pursue the same net zero goals. With real-time visibility into emissions activities, we can reliably report on our impact and progress, gleaning the insights required to continually test, refine, and scale sustainability initiatives. After all, if we’re not effective in measuring, we won't be effective in the actions we're taking.

However, we must think even bigger than MCfS, dedicate the resources needed to find more creative solutions to today’s operational challenges and arrive at the forefront of bigger innovations. This means gathering bright and passionate minds to brainstorm new approaches to existing challenges, and it also means applying a growth mindset to future datacenter design and deployment. Which is why moving forward, our datacenter design will support local ecosystems and we will diligently research advanced materials that reduce embodied carbon. With the help of our colleagues at Microsoft Research, Project Zerix will aim to eliminate our environmental impacts through biodegradable plastics, sustainable printed circuit boards, and bio concrete materials.

Supporting our customers and partners on the path to net zero

While we have bold sustainability commitments and a plan for meeting them, real progress can only begin with the recognition that, despite our best intentions, the ability to measure and account for carbon emissions is still remarkably nascent. That’s why it’s crucial that we all work together on the path to net zero.

At Microsoft we are empowering our ecosystem of customers and partners to pursue their sustainability goals through various innovative endeavors. One of them is a 24/7 energy monitoring solution which we are currently in the process of launching and will enable our customers to use 100 percent renewable energy for each hour of consumption. Just as important are the renewable energy partnerships in our sustainable new regions. For example, a newly launched sustainable datacenter, where renewable energy will offset the energy use of the campus, and the new region will also use zero water for cooling for more than half the year, leveraging a method called adiabatic cooling which uses outside air. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Emissions Impact Dashboard is granting our customers visibility into their organization’s carbon emissions related to Microsoft cloud services usage, allowing them to quantify their cloud footprint and optimize decision-making to reduce future emissions.

In Latin America, Grupo Bimbo has been piloting our Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability program with auspicious results. The company is currently deploying an Industrial Internet of Things platform to gain complete visibility into its value chain—from production logistics to transportation. The timely information our technology provides is helping the organization to identify, adjust and correct inefficiencies in its use of water and energy, allowing it to significantly reduce carbon emissions and shrink its environmental footprint. Meanwhile in Brazil, we couldn’t be more thrilled about supporting PrevisIA, an innovative new tool which uses Microsoft AI technology to monitor deforestation and generate forest fire forecasts to help preserve biodiversity across the Amazon region.

Last but certainly not least, we're working with our suppliers to help reduce their collective footprint. For a company like ours with a wide range of suppliers, it's crucial to think beyond and address the impact that our network of vendors can have. And, as of July 2021 we launched a supplier portal with a set of in-depth, capacity-building tools and resources to help them report their GHG emissions, develop clean energy strategies and reduce energy-related emissions.

As our company’s journey to a net zero future continues, we also remain committed to helping our customers face each challenge along the way. Collaboration has never been more key to our collective success, which is why we must work together, share our learnings and progress, and continuously innovate to develop new tools and solutions. Each one of us has an essential role to play in this process, and we can’t do it without you. Visit microsoft.com/ sustainability to learn more about our sustainability commitments in action today and find out how you can get involved.