How Microsoft is Tackling Emissions from Purchased Goods
Microsoft has confirmed a trio of appointments specifically designed to help the company address its Scope 3 emissions.
They are:
- Sofia Khan, former Net Zero lead for Meta and sustainability manager at Quantis;
- Tim Hopper, a Microsoft veteran with over 20 years of experience across sustainability efforts;
- Ray Waweru, former lead for sustainable procurement at Google and responsible sourcing manager at WeWork.
The appointments were announced by Charlie Sellars, Author and Director of Sustainability at Microsoft, via LinkedIn.
"Pesky Scope 3.1"
Announcing the new team, Charlie said: "Incredibly honoured to have these three on my team to tackle those pesky Scope 3.1 'Purchased Goods and Services' carbon emissions from our cloud and AI operations. Now to roll up our sleeves and get it done."
Emissions, in this case, refers to all those emitted upstream before products are purchased or acquired by the reporting company in the reporting year. Products include both goods (tangible products) and services (intangible products).
Sofia also took to LinkedIn to express her delight at being appointment, adding: "I'm ecstatic to share that I'm starting a new position collaborating and innovating to decarbonise scope 3 emissions at Microsoft.
"I'm excited to work and learn alongside talented and warm colleagues at an organisation that is truly committed to sustainability and a leader in AI. Cheers to making an impact and having fun along the way."
Why form the team?
Creating a dedicated taskforce forms part of Microsoft's efforts to address the emissions created by its rapidly-growing data centre footprint, which have been uncovered as a major issue in terms of the company meeting its sustainability ambitions.
Microsoft has outlined plans to reduce its Scope 3 emissions by more than half by 2030, in comparison to 2020. It recently announced that its Scope 3 emissions had, in fact, risen by 30% since 2020, owing to a major expansion in data centres relating to ever-increasing demand for AI computing power.
Although the organisation has managed to reduce both Scope 1 and 2 emissions, overall emissions are up 29.1% from the 2020 baseline
Scope 3 emissions make up more than 96% of Microsoft's total emissions output.
It has launched a company-wide effort to discover and create measures to tackle the Scope 3 emissions, including a policy aimed at encouraging key suppliers to use 100% carbon-free electricity.
Addressing Scope 3 at Microsoft
When the aforementioned figures were reported, Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft, and CSO Melanie Nakagawa – number three in Sustainability Magazine's Top 100 Women in Sustainability – admitted that a renewed focus was required on Scope 3.
They said: "Leaders in every area of the company have stepped up to sponsor and drive this work.
"The rise in our Scope 3 emissions primarily comes from the construction of more data centres and the associated embodied carbon in building materials, as well as hardware components such as semiconductors, servers and racks."
Microsoft is, however, on track in several areas within its sustainability efforts, such as:
- Reducing direct operational emissions (Scope 1 and 2)
- Accelerating carbon removal
- Designing for circularity to minimise waste and reusing cloud hardware
- Improving biodiversity and protecting more land than Microsoft uses.
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