tl;dr
Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) total carbon footprint has grown almost 30% since 2020 due to emissions from the construction of data centers to meet growing AI needs. The tech company's Scope 1 and 2 emissions - meaning direct emissions generated from its activities and indirect emissions from consumptio...
Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) total carbon footprint has grown almost 30% since 2020 due to emissions from the construction of data centers to meet growing AI needs. The tech company's Scope 1 and 2 emissions - meaning direct emissions generated from its activities and indirect emissions from consumption of electricity or heat - dropped 6.3% in 2023 from the 2020 baseline. However, Scope 3 emissions - indirect emissions from all other activities - increased 30.9% during the same period. This was driven by construction of more data centers, and associated building materials and hardware components such as semiconductors, servers, and racks. "In aggregate, across all Scopes 1–3, Microsoft's (MSFT) emissions are up 29.1% from the 2020 baseline," it said in its sustainability report. Complying with sustainability goals across the tech sector has become more difficult since the AI wave, because of the new technology's intense energy demand and associated carbon emissions. Microsoft (MSFT) said it is working on scaling corporate clean energy purchases across its supply chain, and decarbonizing steel, concrete, and other building material production for use in its campus and data center construction. The company aims to reduce Scope 3 emissions by more than half from a 2020 baseline by 2030, and targets having 100% of its electricity consumption matched by zero carbon energy purchases by then. Microsoft (MSFT) also introduced a new requirement for certain high-volume suppliers to use 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030. Earlier this month, Brookfield Asset Management said it would provide Microsoft (MSFT) with more than 10.5 GW of renewable energy capacity, nearly 8x more than the largest single corporate power purchase agreement ever signed.
More about Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company that produces computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best-known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. It was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2016. Microsoft is considered one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.
Industry: Technology
Sector: Services-Prepackaged Software
Market Cap: 309.6 billion
P/E Ratio: 36.1
EPS: 2.93
Dividend Yield: 11.54
52-week High: 31.83
52-week Low: 0.364
Shares Outstanding: 236,583,993,000
Public Float: 472.39
Beta: 0.2
Inst. Ownership: 0.17
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