Enabling a more sustainable world
Our actions alone won’t solve the climate crisis. We’re committed to helping build the enabling societal conditions that will support a net zero economy.
Investing in climate innovation
We’ve created a $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction and removal technologies, as well as related climate solutions to reduce water use and waste.
Heirloom
Our investment in Heirloom will support the deployment of durable, scalable carbon removal, which combines the advantages of carbon mineralization and direct air capture.
H2 Green Steel
Our investment in H2 Green Steel directly impacts our scope 2 and 3 emissions – the company aims to build the world’s first large-scale green steel plant with a 95% reduction in carbon emissions compared to traditional steel-making.
FlexiDAO
We’ve invested in FlexiDAO to reliably track and verify carbon-free energy consumption. Its tool traces electricity and its carbon footprint hourly, providing the transparency customers need.
Vibrant Planet
Our investment in Vibrant Planet supports the use of complex data fusion and AI to map forests at fine scale. Its customers utilize the insights to monitor current conditions and devise strategies to mitigate wildfire and climate risk, improve climate adaptation, and enhance ecosystem services.
Accelerate sustainability solutions with AI features
Microsoft is investing in AI-based solutions in areas where progress on our global sustainability goals is bottlenecked. As the world enters a new era of AI, there is both an opportunity and an urgent need to focus the abilities of AI on accelerating sustainability.
Advocating for net zero
Microsoft and the broader private sector have an important role to play in advocating for effective and innovative sustainability policies. We pledge to use our voice on public policy issues to help advance global decarbonization efforts.
Advancing carbon and electricity policy
Our briefs on carbon and electricity policy share the priorities and principles that guide Microsoft’s policy advocacy work around the world.
Accelerating decarbonization and energy technology
Building on our electricity brief, we published a new policy brief that focuses on the role advanced nuclear and fusion energy technologies play in decarbonization and the priorities that guide Microsoft's policy advocacy.
Policy recommendations for green skilling
Our LinkedIn team met with climate and workforce government leaders during COP27 and COP28 to push for greater investment in green jobs and green skills development.
Advancing progress with AI
In 2023, Microsoft published “Accelerating Sustainability with AI” -- the playbook outlines policy principles to govern AI and align it with sustainability outcomes.
Employee engagement
At Microsoft, we recognize that our employees are our most important asset and resource in advancing innovation in sustainability. We’re creating opportunities for them to contribute to our efforts.
Our employee community
Since 2018, Microsoft employees have self-organized into a volunteer-led sustainability community, the Sustainability Connected Community (SCC)—its mission is to make sustainability part of everybody’s job.
Empowering employees to innovate
We tap into the ingenuity of our employees through Hack for Sustainability during our annual Microsoft Global Hackathon. In 2023, over 700 employees participated to create innovative AI solutions for environmental challenges. The winning projects this year focused on outcomes including reducing carbon intensity, improving carbon accounting, and utilizing generative AI in novel ways.
Green jobs and skilling
To transform the global economy, the sustainability workforce must grow quickly. Driven by new climate policies and commitments, we expect to see millions of new green jobs created globally. We’re taking action with LinkedIn to empower the workforce with the green skills needed to drive climate progress.
Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap
To meet this demand, a vital effort is needed to equip companies and employees with a broad range of new skills needed for sustainability transformation. We published the Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap report to share what we have learned.
Sustainability Skilling at LinkedIn
LinkedIn Learning offers a growing catalog of sustainability skills courses to empower the workforce. LinkedIn also published the 2023 Green Skills Report which highlights global trends in the green economy.
