Microsoft announces a massive 25 percent jump in emissions

Microsoft’s greenhouse gas pollution increased by nearly 25 percent in the past year, Microsoft said in its new sustainability report released Thursday.

This report comes in the wake of similar reports issued by Google and Amazon last week. Together they show a worrying trend of rising technology company emissions, driven by the global race to build energy-hungry data centres.

In a blog post announcing the report, Microsoft vice president and president Brad Smith and chief sustainability officer Melanie Nakagawa said the emissions increase was driven “primarily by the expansion of our data center infrastructure.”

Much of this increase was related to emissions from energy the company purchased or obtained to power its operations, they wrote. Known as Scope 2 emissions, greenhouse gas pollution represents 13 percent of Microsoft’s total emissions.

Data centers, which use large amounts of power to power artificial intelligence chips, have pushed many big tech companies toward increasingly elusive net-zero goals over the past few years.

Amazon revealed a 16 percent increase in its CO2₂ Emissions in the latest sustainability report. Google said in its new sustainability report that annual greenhouse gas emissions rose by 18 percent last year compared to 2024, the largest increase it has recorded in one year. The company has invested heavily in renewable energy, but has also begun adding fossil fuel power to some of its data centers.

Microsoft highlighted in its sustainability report that it has matched 100 percent of its electricity consumption with carbon-free sources. But data center construction is set to accelerate, and some of Microsoft’s recent investments may increase its emissions. It is worth noting that the new report covers the fiscal year 2025, which ended last June, and a number of deals have been concluded since then that included gas-powered data centers.

Last month, the company officially announced a partnership with Chevron, which is building a power plant to power a future data center for the company in West Texas. Permits show this power plant could emit more than 11.5 million tons of carbon dioxide₂ That’s the equivalent of a year, an amount larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. The company has also leased buildings at the Stargate Campus in Abilene, Texas, which will be powered by an on-site power plant that could emit more than 7.8 million tons of carbon dioxide.₂ Equivalent to every year. Microsoft also signed a non-binding letter of intent for computing at the West Virginia data center, which will be powered by off-grid gas that could emit more than 11 million tons of greenhouse gases.

“Microsoft’s strategy includes exploring a variety of options to mitigate emissions from its electricity consumption, consistent with our sustainability ambitions,” Nakagawa says in a statement to WIRED.

Microsoft’s approach to offsetting some of its emissions through credits and other investments is also changing. The company says it has stopped purchasing unbundled renewable energy certificates, a move that partly contributed to rising Scope 2 emissions. The use of these types of certificates has been criticized in recent years as greenwashing because they do not necessarily add more clean energy to the grid. Unbundled RECs are essentially “a paper transaction that is physically disconnected from real-world consequences,” says Danny Cullenward, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. (Colinward is also a visiting faculty member at Google, but noted that he was not speaking on behalf of the company.)

“I think it’s very commendable [Microsoft] “We are moving away from unbundled RECs and prioritizing investments in new clean electricity, where PPAs and other long-term purchase agreements can bring new clean electricity online,” he adds.

Despite rising emissions and its ongoing investments in AI, Microsoft still says it plans to become “carbon negative” by 2030. Smith and Nakagawa write that the global race for AI “is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials.” They say the company “has a responsibility to help ensure that technology strengthens, rather than strains, the systems and communities that depend on it.”