Alexander Peschkoff’s Post

Highly interesting whitepaper from Microsoft diving into the topic of carbon accounting and how to align corporate actions with Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. The carbon markets need robust guidelines urgently and I applaud Microsoft for their leadership!

As discussed at the end of the document, additionality is a key aspect of reconciling private sector and NDC accounting for removals. There is no "right answer" when it comes to reconciling the various factors and objectives that are in play, but one can pretty easily tell whether a proposed reconciliation approach will be biased towards allowing a lot of "false positive" offsets to be counted, or towards keeping a lot of "false negatives" from being counted. In this case, the three key criteria: 1) not legally mandated, 2) not fully government funded, 3) not common practice will clearly let in A LOT of false positive (fake) offsets. That's not inherently a fatal flaw (since there is no "right answer"). If, for example, one could convincingly argue that the proposed approach would generate enough private sector funding to fundamentally advance global CDR outcomes and materially impact future climate change, that might "justify" a lot of false positives if there is no other way to accomplish the same aim. But while the report may assume this fact, it's not really evaluated much less proved. And since the document doesn't even mention false positives, it's a lot more self-serving than not.

What is Microsoft doing in terms of Carbon Dioxide Removal? The important of transparency and intersection between Corporates (private sector) and government on the double accounting to accelerate the progress and mitigate the global warming… #cdr #sustainabilitymatters #climaterisk

10 gigatons of carbon dioxide will need to be removed annually until 2050 to reach the global goal of keeping the planet within 1.5 degrees. Voluntary corporate net zero goals play an integral role in driving private-sector purchases of carbon dioxide removals (CDR) and thus developing the market. In this new Microsoft whitepaper, we showcase how corporate and national carbon claims can be structured to co-exist and enable more efficient, wide-scale deployment of CDR capacity. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gYtx5BJn

Congratulations to re.green for teaming up with Microsoft, who agreed to buy 3 million tons of removal credits over 15 years, one of the largest carbon credit sales projects ever signed on the planet! This major milestone shows that nature-related opportunities are increasingly becoming part of the broader risk management and valuation calculus for corporates. It also illustrates that natural ecosystem restoration is a tremendous, if not the largest scale and most cost-effective near-term opportunity for climate mitigation! As eloquently stated by Thiago Picolo on Bloomberg News below, "the deal with Microsoft should serve as a vote of confidence that helps re.green find more investors and even access debt markets to expand." That makes total sense because, as recently reported by The New York Times in a reference to re.green, "a backlash from #nature seems to be helping the restoration companies win hearts and minds in a region where ranching culture runs deep." As a power for a better world, Good Energies Foundation seed-funded re.green in 2019, not merely as an act of charity, but rather as a high-yielding investment into our planetary foundations. Our gratitude to re.green's visionary leadership, Thiago Picolo, Bernardo Strassburg, Tatiana Botelho, Mariana Barbosa, Fernando Visser, Ana Luiza Squadri, Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, Renata Barbieri, Mauricio Penteado, ricardo rodrigues, Miguel A. Moraes, and colleagues, for evidencing that #forest #carbon is becoming a tangible asset on corporate balance sheets. 🙏🏾🌎🌳

A responsibility to enact change. A responsibility to tackle the seemingly impossible. A responsibility to innovate solutions that enable us and the world to meet our climate goals. When Microsoft announced our Carbon Negative commitment in 2020, we did so eyes wide open to both the ambition of the goals and the inherent challenges we faced in achievement. What's always been so striking to me is that we saw this not only as an opportunity but, perhaps more importantly, a responsibility. Each and every day since the announcement, I remain motivated by this responsibility and work alongside some of the brightest minds to make meaningful progress against our goal. This past year, we... ☑ Identified more than 80 discrete and significant carbon reduction measures that will help us reduce our emissions. ☑ Implemented a new requirement for select scale, high-volume suppliers to use 100% carbon-free electricity for Microsoft delivered goods and services by 2030. ☑ Delivered datacenters with a design rating of 1.12 PUE, increasing the efficiency of our infrastructure. ☑ Modeled high-impact components installed and sold by Microsoft to quantify which specific products, manufacturers, geographic locations, and production stages are driving emissions, enabling bespoke decarbonization strategy. ☑ Entered a first of its kind 10-year contract with World Energy for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) certificates, aiming to replace 43.7 million gallons of fossil jet fuel. ...to name a few. Is there more work to do to meet our goal? Yes! Will we continue to make progress? Also, yes! In our latest report, see how we are making a positive impact on our environment. Read the report: https://lnkd.in/gcE6iEZb #MSSustainability #MSFTAdvocate  Melanie Nakagawa Lynne Andersen Michelle Billig Patron Amy Luers Brandon Middaugh Darlene Campos Avi Allison Julia Fidler Kevin Martins Eliza Roberts Alessandra Pistoia Ally Wilson Fernando Reyes-Gonzalez Randall Stacy Austin Dickerson Harsh Naik Lindsey LaGesse Joel Combs, CFA Jacob Wagner Eliana Martinez Laurie Thomas Trista Patterson, PhD Charlie Sellars Annika Swenson Jim Hanna Hyrine Munga Ph.D. SEA Leslie Esparza Brian Marrs Phillip Goodman Baha Sadreddin Leo Aspauza Kali Frost Nico De Golia Danielle Decatur Michelle Lancaster Elizabeth Willmott Elena Papakosta Elizabeth Comley Tim Carroll

👇 This paragraph caught my eye in a recent article in The Economist about the voluntary carbon market: "Microsoft enjoys monopsony* power in carbon removal. The firm, which has bought credits to remove at least 5m tonnes of carbon dioxide, has a department dedicated to finding projects. Smaller companies, by contrast, will struggle to do the same." (See: https://lnkd.in/eNZM_rBu) The article highlights one of the reasons we’re building Glad: 🌍 Carbon removal should not be the sole domain of big corporations with “dedicated departments sourcing projects”. 🌍 There’s nothing wrong them doing so of course, it’s great that they are using their heft to actively help stimulate and grow the carbon removal market. But we need to remove gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. Not millions of tonnes. To scale the demand for carbon removal to the level of gigatonnes we need more than just the odd mega-corp doing their bit. We need all businesses of all sizes. That’s were Glad comes in. We help businesses that don’t have their own “departments dedicated to finding carbon removal projects”, but who do want to play their part in fixing climate change. We help by giving these businesses a simple way to access the carbon removal market. Businesses join Glad and make monthly contributions. We pool those contributions and buy carbon removal from carefully selected suppliers as part of a blended portfolio. Glad members get a simple way to have a positive impact, access to increased buying power (thanks to pooling resources), a way to reduce purchasing risk, and a sharable “Glad Impact Record” that shows their company’s impact in realtime. The carbon removal market gets a boost from another source of funds and - most importantly! - the planet gets cleaner. Win. Win. Win. Where Microsoft are leading the way, we need others to follow - in their droves - to break their “monopsony power”. #ClimateAction #CorporateResponsibility #SustainableBusiness #GreenBusiness #carbonRemoval #Microsoft #TheEconomist #CDR ⎺ ⎺ ⎺ ⎺ ⎺ *I had to look up the word “monopsony”; “A market situation where there is only one buyer”.

The negative publicity surrounding carbon credits has had a significant impact on the strategies of major companies like Google and others. As we all know, data centres are becoming a growing problem, with energy consumption on the rise. This problem also further extends to huge volumes of water used for cooling with AI super computers compounding problems in drought-stricken regions. Google has decided to revamp its approach to climate neutrality. Instead of relying heavily on cheap carbon credits, the company has set a new target of net-zero emissions by 2030. This ambitious goal will be achieved through a two-pronged attack of reducing their own emissions and investing in projects that actively remove carbon dioxide from the air. In the past, Google balanced its emissions with carbon offsets, which are essentially certificates representing prevented emissions. However, their latest environmental report shows a shift away from this strategy. Google's reliance on powerful artificial intelligence has significantly increased their overall emissions, with their carbon footprint ballooning by 48% between 2019 and 2023. Google will prioritise directly cutting emissions and investing in proven carbon removal technologies. While these methods may be more expensive, they demonstrably take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It's worth noting that this technology also has its critics. www.terrypaule.com www.wegrowwater.com #ClimateAction #Sustainability #CarbonNeutrality #Innovation

🌍 Breaking new ground in climate action: UNDO x Microsoft 🌍 We're excited to announce a follow-on deal with Microsoft -  our largest collaboration yet and a major leap in our fight against climate change. What this means: - 65,000 tonnes of crushed silicate rock will be spread in the UK and Canada. - 15,000 tonnes of CO₂ will be permanently removed from our atmosphere. - Funds from this collaboration will boost our field trials in the UK and Canada, enhancing our research into the benefits of enhanced rock weathering (ERW). This project marks a significant scale-up from our initial agreement with Microsoft in 2023, reinforcing the tech giant’s dedication to innovative climate solutions like ours. ERW, a high-permanence, nature-enabled carbon removal method, not only addresses the urgent climate crisis but also improves soil health and supports farming communities. This collaboration is just the beginning. By working with Canadian Wollastonite and utilising their high-quality silicate rock, we’re advancing our technology and scientific research to deliver more impactful and scalable carbon removal solutions. Together, we’re on a mission to bring carbon removal capabilities to rural communities around the world, pushing closer towards net zero. Follow our journey as we continue to break new ground in carbon removal technology and forge collaborations that shape the future of our planet. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eVRNMAHt #CarbonRemoval #ClimateAction #Sustainability #Innovation #Microsoft #UNDOCarbon #ERW #EnhancedRockWeathering

It was fantastic to be joined on DCD's Energy & Sustainability Channel by Brian Marrs, Senior Director of Energy & Carbon Removal at Microsoft, to discuss carbon removal and the company's commitment to remove the equivalent of all historical emissions since Microsoft's founding by 2050. We talked about: ►Opportunities and challenges arising from carbon removal, including the need for better industry standards ►How carbon removal fits into an overall corporate sustainability strategy ►What needs to happen for carbon removal to scale in the data center sector in the same way that, for example, PPAs did Watch on-demand here: https://lnkd.in/evVfHe3h