Microsoft says its carbon emissions rose 25% in 2025

In short: Microsoft’s 2026 sustainability report says the company’s carbon emissions increased 25 percent in 2025, largely due to expanding data centers.

What's going on

Microsoft reported that its carbon emissions rose 25 percent in 2025. The report puts the total at about 34 million metric tons, measured “without select interventions,” which means before counting some special actions the company may use to lower the final number.

Microsoft said the increase was driven primarily by the expansion of its data center infrastructure. Data centers are large buildings full of computers that store files and run online services, similar to warehouses but for digital work. The company is building more of them as it runs and trains more AI systems, which require a lot of electricity, and often need water for cooling.

The report also points to a policy change from February 2025. Microsoft stopped purchasing certain renewable energy certificates, which are credits that companies buy to claim they helped pay for clean electricity. Microsoft described the certificates it stopped buying as “non-additional, unbundled,” meaning they were not clearly linked to new clean power being added to the grid.

This update matters because Microsoft has a public goal to be carbon negative by 2030. Carbon negative means removing more carbon pollution from the air than the company produces. Microsoft’s 2024 sustainability report also showed emissions rising, and this year’s report admits that sustainability efforts are not growing fast enough to match AI’s demand for energy, water, land, and materials.

What to watch

Watch whether Microsoft can slow the growth of emissions while it keeps building AI-related data centers. It is also worth comparing this with other big tech companies, since Google reported a similar 25 percent jump in supply chain emissions and Amazon reported a 16 percent increase.

Source: The Verge AI