Microsoft and other major companies launched the Transform to Net Zero initiative this week with the goal to accelerate progress toward a net-zero-carbon-emissions future. Coalition members — A P. Moller-Maersk, Danone, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Natura, Nike, Starbucks, Unilever, and Wipro — also pledged to achieve net zero emissions no later than 2050. 

Together, the members will pool and share resources, research, and strategies to push corporate climate commitment roadmaps into action. The cross-sector initiative hopes to chart the course for additional companies to close the gap between intention and action, and slash their carbon emissions in line with a 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming trajectory.

The group expects to complete its work by 2025 by pushing policy that accelerates the net-zero transition and investing in carbon-reduction technologies. 

Transform to Net Zero, Microsoft President Brad Smith said, builds off of the corporate momentum of ambitious, net zero emissions goals to meet companies where they stand – whether that’s at the starting line or turning “carbon commitments into real progress.”

“No one company can address the climate crisis alone,” he said in a prepared statement. “That’s why leading companies are developing and sharing best practices, research, and learnings to help everyone move forward.”    

Prior to COVID-19, employees, customers, and investors forced the hands of CEOs, asking that they do more than just turn a profit, and instead redefine the ethos of big business by leading the charge in climate commitments that address the environmental impact of their full value chains.

“Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” wrote Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of Blackrock, in the company’s annual letter to CEOs. Blackrock is the world’s largest investor in public companies. “I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” he added.

Dr. Shuli Goodman, executive director of LF Energy, a Linux Foundation initiative that uses open-source tech to accelerate the energy sector’s decarbonization, said that we are “entering a cycle of profound innovation in the effort to reduce the global population’s resource and carbon footprint.”

“If we fail to come up with solutions for decarbonization, we are going to see mass-migrations, mass die-offs, and major catastrophic events all over the world,” he said.“Our existence as we know it is in critical danger.”

In addition to joining Transform to Net Zero, Microsoft also this week unveiled its single largest renewable energy portfolio purchase agreement. Under the deal, U.S. energy firm Sol Systems will finance, develop, and operate a portfolio of more than 500 megawatts (MW) of solar projects in the U.S. and sell energy from those to Microsoft.

Microsoft procured about 1.9 gigawatts of renewable energy prior to this partnership. For reference, 500 MW would power more than 70,000 homes in the U.S. per year.

The partnership will help Microsoft meet its goal of shifting to 100% renewable energy by 2025 following its January promise to be carbon negative by 2030 and make up for all of the carbon emissions it has ever produced by 2050. At the time, the company also developed a Sustainability Calculator to help its customers track carbon emissions data associated with their Azure cloud usage. 

And on Earth Day Microsoft announced the second phase of its AI for Earth program with a new biodiversity initiative in the form of a “Planetary Computer.” The goal is to use big data and digital technology to improve environmental decision making.