Microsoft today joined the Carbon Call, an initiative to improve measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and advance the world's carbon accounting systems through collaborative work by scientific, corporate, philanthropic, and intergovernmental organizations.

This initiative, announced today, aims to find and address the gaps in existing carbon accounting systems, which are significant. An estimated 8.5 billion to 13.3 billion tons of GHG emissions go unreported each year, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. The biggest roots of this issue are poor quality data and inconsistencies in emissions measuring and reporting processes.

The Carbon Call will focus on measuring scope 3 emissions, methane, and carbon removal in its efforts to improve the interoperability of data ecosystems and carbon accounting reports.

Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions resulting from an organization's supply chain, waste, and customer use of its products. These are more difficult to measure and regulate than direct, or scope 1 and 2, emissions. Because of this, accurate GHG emissions measurement is foundational for meaningful emissions reduction.

Other founding members of the group include the Linux Foundation, LF Energy, International Science Council, Climate Change AI, and the United Nations Foundation.

"Since the beginning of our sustainability journey at Microsoft, we’ve known that we need to work together with a wide range of organizations to achieve a net-zero carbon future," Microsoft Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa wrote in a blog post. "We’re excited to work with others to strengthen the foundations for carbon accountability and advance a reliable, global system of interoperable GHG ledgers."

The initiative seeks to enable open and efficient assessment and interoperability of corporate carbon accounting while supporting integration into global GHG emissions inventories.

According to the Carbon Call, this will make corporate GHG reports more transparent and comprehensive. To get there, it plans to support data and scientific reporting processes that produce "comparable, combinable, and sharable information."

As corporations take on more responsibility in the fight against climate change, more eyes are watching them. Here's what Carbon Call signatories have agreed to be held accountable for.

Organizations that sign on agree to support "the enabling conditions needed for a more reliable global system of interoperable carbon accounting reports." In addition, its signatories commit to comprehensively report GHG emissions across all three scopes, annually and transparently.

Microsoft specifically plans to support the Carbon Call "with expertise in data science, artificial intelligence and digital technology infrastructure, and long experience in measuring, accounting for and reporting carbon emissions," Joppa wrote in response to questions.

Microsoft's recent messaging echoes the Carbon Call's promises. "Progress will require measurement and technology breakthroughs on par with those that propelled humanity to the moon. If we want to solve this global crisis, this will require new investments, collaboration, and transparency," Joppa said during an earlier press briefing.

Microsoft plans to be carbon negative by 2030 and to remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted directly or by electricity consumption since its origins in 1975.