Build a sustainable IT infrastructure
You can automatically reduce the environmental impact of your business by using technologies that are sustainable by design. Microsoft products and solutions are conceived, built, operated, and retired with sustainability in mind. We're continuing to apply innovation to ensure our technologies help you minimize your climate impact.
A key place to begin is evaluating your compute resource utilization, storage, and networking efficiencies. Simply migrating from on-premises cloud services to a hyperscaler yields carbon and energy efficiency improvements. How you deploy and configure your IT tools can affect the environmental footprint of your systems.
The devices you use also contribute to your environmental footprint. You need to be equipped to make informed decisions about recyclable and repairable devices, with an eye toward both carbon and circularity. Microsoft devices have integrity built in across the entire product lifecycle, from responsible sourcing of materials through product usage and end-of-life management. We work closely with partners throughout our supply chain to meet social and environmental accountability standards.
Workload migration to the cloud
Seek opportunities to adopt Microsoft Azure cloud and AI services. These services cut your energy consumption and costs and reduce physical footprints of your data centers, while enabling the development of sustainable products and solutions. Transitioning workloads to Microsoft Azure can produce up to 98 percent more carbon efficiency and up to 93 percent more energy efficiency than on-premises options (depending on specific server usage, renewable energy purchases made, and other factors). Emissions Impact Dashboard applications provide transparency into the emissions related to usage of Microsoft cloud services. They also provide new insights on how to further optimize these services and the gains made from Microsoft's own improvements. Minimize climate impact by optimizing your IT deployment and maintenance and configuring your IT systems, processes, and tools.
Solutions to help you take advantage of this capability:
- Emissions Impact Dashboard for Azure
- Emissions Impact Dashboard for Microsoft 365
- Emissions saving estimator for Microsoft Cloud
- Azure Migration and Modernization Program
Further improve your sustainability posture and discover best practices for designing, building, and operating sustainable solutions on Azure with the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework. The Sustainability workload documentation offers recommendations for optimizing Azure workloads, including Application platform considerations for sustainable workloads on Azure.
Responsible devices
Device sustainability starts with design and extends through responsible sourcing, device use, and end of life. We're working to promote circularity and achieve zero waste for our direct operations, products, and packaging by 2030. Organizations that invest in Windows, Surface, Xbox, and Microsoft intelligent devices and PC accessories benefit from these efforts. Surface devices, in particular, maximize sustainability of materials and extend product life while minimizing product carbon footprint and energy consumption.
Solutions to help you take advantage of this capability: