Microsoft Staff Tell Carbon Removal Projects That Deals Paused
(Bloomberg) -- Staff at Microsoft Corp. have told some developers of carbon removal credits that the company is pausing what is currently the world’s biggest program for financing the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Employees at the software giant have called a number of carbon project developers in recent days to say Microsoft is putting purchases on hold, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified disclosing confidential information. In one instance, Microsoft employees said the decision was motivated by financial considerations, one of the people said.
Microsoft is by far the largest investor in removal credits, having set an ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030. The company is engaged in deals across a variety of technologies, with BloombergNEF estimating that its purchases in 2025 accounted for 96% of the entire market.
Emails to Microsoft outside regular office hours weren’t immediately answered. Heatmap reported earlier that Microsoft is shelving future purchases of carbon removals, while noting that a spokesperson for the company denied it was indefinitely pausing all of its purchases.
Microsoft may restart the program in the future, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Four developers with Microsoft contracts separately told Bloomberg News they hadn’t been informed by the tech giant about any pause to the company’s carbon removals program.
Microsoft said in January it had received hundreds of applications from carbon removal projects over the previous 2 1/2 years, adding that it had entered purchase contracts for more than 60 projects covering 10 distinct types of carbon dioxide removal, totaling more than 78 million metric tons.
While Microsoft has expanded its carbon removals program, the company’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly on the back of its investment in data centers needed to power artificial intelligence.
Pulling vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere will be essential if the planet is to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic levels of overheating. At the same time, global capacity for removing carbon from the atmosphere is currently just a fraction of what scientists say is needed.
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