Microsoft’s carbon emissions rose 25% last year
▼ Summary
– Microsoft’s 2026 sustainability report shows a 25% increase in carbon emissions in 2025, reaching 34 million metric tons, mainly due to data center expansion and a change in renewable energy certificate purchases.
– The company aims to be carbon negative by 2030, but this is not its first setback, as its 2024 report also showed a rise in pollution.
– Microsoft admits that AI infrastructure is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials, while sustainability solutions are not scaling fast enough.
– Google reported a 25% spike in supply chain emissions in its 2026 report, while Amazon reported a 16% increase.
– Amazon reported that its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, which it claims is less than Microsoft’s usage.
Microsoft is once again falling short of its ambitious climate commitments, with the company’s carbon emissions rising by 25 percent in 2025, according to its newly released 2026 sustainability report. As noted by GeekWire, the tech giant’s total emissions reached 34 million metric tons “without select interventions.” The company attributes this surge primarily to the expansion of its datacenter infrastructure and a policy shift last February that halted purchases of “non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates.”
The company previously set a bold target to become carbon negative by 2030, meaning it aims to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. This is not the first time Microsoft has stumbled on that path. Its 2024 sustainability report also recorded a similar increase in climate pollution. The latest report concedes that, “While AI infrastructure is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials, sustainability solutions are not scaling fast enough to meet demand.”
Microsoft is not alone in this struggle. Google reported a comparable 25 percent jump in its supply chain emissions in its 2026 sustainability report, while Amazon saw a slightly lower 16 percent increase. In June, Amazon also disclosed that its data centers consumed 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, though it claims that figure is lower than Microsoft’s usage.
(Source: The Verge)
