Microsoft announced today the achievement of one its key sustainability goals, with the tech giant reaching its target to match 100% of its annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy.
The clean energy goal formed part of a series of targets set by Microsoft in 2020, which included a commitment to use 100% renewable energy in its buildings and datacenters globally by 2025, as well as its “moonshot” target to become carbon negative by 2030, removing more carbon than it emits, and to remove the amount of carbon it has historically emitted by 2050. In 2021, the company added its “100/100/0” vision, committing to have 100% of its electricity consumption, 100% percent of the time, matched by purchases from zero carbon energy sources.
In a post announcing the company’s clean energy achievement, Microsoft’ Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa said:
“This is an important step on our path to carbon negativity. Electricity is a major source of emissions for Microsoft – and for many organizations. Microsoft’s experience building our clean energy portfolio has served as an important catalyst in driving commercial demand for infrastructure and innovation across the power sector.”
Since unveiling its goal in 2020, Microsoft has announced several major clean energy deals globally, including entering a multi-year framework agreement with Brookfield for the development of more than 10.5 GW of new renewable energy capacity in the U.S. and Europe, which marked the largest-ever corporate renewable energy procurement.
The company has also emerged as the largest corporate purchaser of carbon removal credits – by a wide margin – recently revealing that it signed agreements to a remove record 45 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025.
To date, Microsoft has built one of the world’s largest clean energy portfolios, according to Nakagawa, spanning 26 countries and supporting 40 GW of contracted capacity, and with more than 400 contracts with over 95 utilities and developers.
Nakagawa said:
“None of this happens alone. Reaching this milestone was possible thanks to the utility professionals, clean energy developers, engineers, community leaders, and policymakers we work alongside every day.”
