Microsoft: Sustainability Supports Business Longevity

The Longevity Key for Business research paper is the result of a joint effort and collaboration between PwC Germany, Microsoft and the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. 

The report highlights organisations that are utilising their ESG data and AI to reach sustainability goals and current net zero targets. 

Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft explains: “While the world will need to reach net zero, those of us who can afford to move faster and go further should do so.”

This report is an essential guide for any organisation looking to implement sustainable initiatives and reduce their carbon footprint using data and AI via:

• Sustainable business opportunities
• Business transformations 
• Reduction of costs and carbon emissions
• Increase operational efficiency
• New business models. 

The Longevity Key for business 

The Microsoft report on sustainability for cloud and AI services highlights how organisations can leverage cloud technology to become sustainable. 

Key points include:

• Efficient cloud solutions and AI-enhanced operations: Microsoft’s cloud services offer a reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions, achieving up to 98% less carbon emissions compared to traditional data centres. AI-powered tools optimise resource allocation, manage energy usage and predict maintenance needs, helping to cut down waste and emissions
• Data-driven sustainability and carbon accounting: The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and Emissions Impact Dashboard provides businesses with real-time data and tools to track emissions across Scopes 1,2 and 3, enabling them to optimise resource usage and align with global ESG standards. 
• Renewable energy and water positive goals: Microsoft is committed to sourcing 100% renewable energy by 2025 and achieving a “water positive” status by 2030, replenishing more water than it consumes. These goals include investments in energy storage, efficient water usage and watershed restoration to manage natural resources sustainably

• Circular economy and supply chain resilience: Microsoft promotes a circular economy via the reuse, recycling and extension of hardware lifecycle. Its sustainable supply chain strategy includes reducing emissions across supplier operations and encouraging partners to leverage cloud and AI tools for better accountability and efficiency
• Collaboration, compliance and ecosystem protection: Microsoft partners with regulatory bodies and standards organisations to help businesses align with global sustainability standards. AI and data is used to monitor and protect ecosystems, with projects focused on forest restoration, species monitoring and ecosystem modelling
• Employee, partner engagement and fostering a sustainability culture: Microsoft invests in training programmes for employees on sustainable practices and engages partners to adopt similar sustainability goals, extending its environmental impact across industries
• Innovation and research: Microsoft is committed to ongoing research in climate-focused AI applications, energy optimisation and carbon capture, driving technological advancements that support sustainable practices and help businesses on their sustainability journeys. 

Microsoft’s sustainability goals

Microsoft is exploring what’s needed to maximise the sustainability impact of corporate investments in nature –they understand nature is essential for people and the global economy.

With the ecosystems that support us being rapidly degraded and lost, escalating risks to society and the climate crisis need to be halted, increased investments are needed to protect and enhance the health of ecosystems.

Microsoft has opted many sustainability initiatives to help battle climate change, their goals being:

• To protect more land than used by 2025 and build a Planetary Computer
• By 2030, Microsoft will be carbon negative and by 2050, it plans to remove all historical emissions since founding in 1975
• By 2030, replenish more water than it consumes across all direct operations
• By 2030, zero waste across all direct waste footprints.

Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft, says: "In the last year, the urgency of climate change has driven world leaders and experts to increase collaboration, with AI offering new opportunities to speed up the availability of climate solutions.”

Since Microsoft’s climate commitments were announced in 2020, it has thrived in the work towards their targets. 

• In 2023, more than 23.6 million MWh of renewable energy was invested. This is enough to power Paris with renewable electricity for two years
• Since the programme’s inception, it has contracted 61.7 million m³ total volumetric water replenishment benefits. This is enough water to fill more than 24,000 Olympic sized swimming pools
• In 2023, 18,537 metric tons of solid waste was diverted from landfills and incineration across owned data centres and campuses, equivalent to the weight of more than 45 commercial passenger jets
• 15,849 total acres of land were protected – exceeding the land protection target of 11,000 by more than 40%, equivalent to more than 9,000 football pitches.

Growth with data and AI

The software developing giant is responsible for providing AI-powered tools to help many environmentally friendly tasks.

Its offerings include using AI-powered tools to process and identify leaks faster and more accurately. This is because leaking pipes account for an average a loss of 30% of piped drinking water across the world.

As well as this, Microsoft offers a playbook that outlines what is needed to ensure that AI delivers on its potential as an accelerator for sustainability solutions. 

And with embodied carbon responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gases, Microsoft is able to pilot new concrete mixes in hard-to-abate industries using its tech background to lower embodied carbon in concrete by more than 50%.

Microsoft uses AI to improve the energy and water efficiency of its data centres, which are critical for supporting AI and cloud services.

Microsoft's AI allows for:

• The implementing of intelligent utilisation and power-aware virtual machine allocation to increase server density in existing data centres
• The development of advanced cooling methods like liquid cooling to support AI chips with lower energy and water requirements
• Ways to reduce peak power usage and safely harvest unused power to be explored.

Microsoft Sustainability management tools now have integrated AI like Copilot to provide assistance for faster data analysis and decision-making on sustainability issues.

AI implements intelligent insights when identifying data quality issues, reduction opportunities and historical trends in emissions data. 

By integrating innovative tools and collaborative efforts, companies can drive impactful transformations that reduce carbon emissions, boost operational efficiency and support resilient, sustainable business models for the future.

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