U.S. President Joe Biden this week signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 that allocates $369 billion in government spending to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Major tech companies that pride themselves on committing to a net-zero future have yet to issue statements in support of the legislation, though trade groups whose members include top executives from Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have opposed the climate bill, highlighting the disconnect between corporate messaging and actions.

The IRA promises to use tax incentives to fund renewable energy projects like the manufacturing and deployment of wind turbines and heat pumps, for example, which would aid big tech's long-touted carbon emissions reduction targets. The legislation, which also targets electric vehicles and clean tech innovation, comes as an addition to the $296 billion allocated to address climate change in the 2021 Infrastructure Bill.

With a combined $669 billion set to be available for climate mitigation, "this is the largest investment that the U.S. federal government has ever made in climate action and interrelated infrastructure projects," Forrester VP and Group Director Amy DeMartine said.

But instead of vocalizing support for this historic investment, the largest players in the tech sector have stay relatively quiet regarding their position on the legislation while their lobbying groups issued statements of opposition.

Lobbying group The Business Roundtable (TBR), which touts Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy as members, recently stated it "strongly opposes" legislation that raises taxes and encouraged Congress to reject such proposals.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has various members from the tech sector, also said it strongly opposed the bill on the grounds it would "discourage investment and undermine economic growth" and "make our economic problems worse."

Google is also a member of the Drawdown Labs consortium, however, which says it bans lobbying against climate change efforts as a rule of membership. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is part of TBR and a member of Drawdown Labs.

These conflicting interests paired with tech giants' lack of progress on their sustainability goals — both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft recently reported significant increases in scope 3 emissions due to overall growth — have raised concerns about these corporate giants' abilities to truly eliminate their impact on the environment.

One area of the IRA that has significant potential to impact the tech industry is the $25 million allocated for EPA enforcement software, along with additional technology-focused innovation included in the legislation that "will require software and services to forecast, model, enable, manage, and measure it all," DeMartine wrote in an email to SDxCentral.

This will result in a skyrocketing sustainability software market aiming to meet the needs of various different markets like solar panels, batteries, and agriculture; the IRA allocates $1.3 billion for climate-smart tools for farmers and ranchers.

Past that, there will be an increasing demand for software suites that handle the needs of markets like energy, transportation, and manufacturing as those traditionally carbon-intensive industries mature toward decarbonization, according to DeMartine.

To that point, leaders in the tech sector should be looking for "opportunities to ride a wave of tech innovation in the coming years," she said, instead of hiding behind shaky corporate promises and rising emissions.

"Companies can expect this massive injection to be a turning point in decarbonization, and they should expect ripple effects across the economy as businesses sense the momentum and clearly see a green market revolution underway," DeMartine added.