AI-driven data centre expansion threatening Microsoft’s climate targets

Microsoft’s carbon footprint jumped by nearly 30% in 2023, with the construction of new data centres to meet growing cloud and AI expectations causing emissions increases across Scope 1, 2 and 3.

The biggest emissions increase by far occurred in Microsoft’s capital goods emissions (including all upstream, cradle-to-gate emissions for the production of its data centres), which went up by a whopping 1.85 million tonnes.