Microsoft Hosts Renewable Energy Alliance Summit

Microsoft was honored to host the Renewable Energy Alliance (REBA) Summit at our Redmond campus last month. Addressing climate change requires partnership across industries, and we believe that convening this group of industry leaders was an important step to ensuring a more sustainable future.

At the REBA Summit, Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith introduced an expansion of the company’s renewable energy principles and made five commitments to support Microsoft’s overall renewable energy strategy: improve the company’s energy mix, maintain carbon neutrality, retire all green attributes from projects in which Microsoft invests, invest in new energy technologies, and support public policies that help enable new renewable energy sources.

Microsoft’s focus on sustainability is not new. Since 2007, we’ve been tracking and reducing emissions, and we’ve been operating our datacenters and the rest of the company at 100 percent carbon neutrality since 2012. Additionally, we’ve reduced our corporate carbon emissions by 9.5 million metric tons and purchased 14 billion kilowatt hours of green energy.

Last week, Microsoft participated in the in the 7th annual Clean Energy Ministerial, a gathering of national energy ministers from 23 countries and the European Commission, all committed to significant action on energy efficiency and renewable energy. We were proud to support the launch of the Corporate Sourcing of Renewables Campaign and are actively working through REBA to deliver on our new renewable energy goals.

Microsoft has made important progress as a company since the start of this decade, but even more important work lies ahead. We need to keep working on a sustained basis to build and operate greener datacenters that will serve the world well and will continue to engage our partners to discover and implement innovative ways to transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future for our planet.

Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer at Microsoft, discusses the company’s commitment to renewable energy on May 19, 2016. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.

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(Left to right) Lily Donge, RMI; Michael Terrell, Google; Lori Duvall, eBay; Steve Skarda, Procter & Gamble; and Brian Janous, Microsoft. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.
(Left to right): Michael Polsky, Invenergy; Bill Weihl, Facebook; Jonathan Weisgall, Berkshire Hathaway Energy; and Letha Tawney, WRI. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.

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(Left to right): Kelly Gallo, BSR; Marty Spitzer, WWF; Letha Tawney, WRI; and Hervé Touati, RMI. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.

Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance Summit (2016) at Microsoft’s Redmond campus. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.
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Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance Summit (2016) at Microsoft’s Redmond campus. © Keith D. Arnold/WWF-US.

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