Microsoft Challenges Tech Industry to Follow Its 'Carbon Negative' Pledge

Microsoft’s pledge to go “carbon negative” by 2030 and take more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits raises the environmental stakes among the big tech companies. The software and services giant went further than its pledge by promising to remove by its 75th anniversary in 2050 the equivalent of all historical emissions since it was founded in 1975. With carbon emissions from computing rising rapidly as data centers handle a massive increase in traffic, the technology industry is coming under growing pressure to reduce carbon pollution. Microsoft is going beyond its main competitors. Google has been carbon neutral since 2007, and Apple announced in 2018 that it was “completely powered by clean energy.”