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How to understand and reduce the environmental impact of your software solutions?

Get insight into your consumption now with the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator and see how your company can contribute to a sustainable future. 

Published: 06 October 2021

How to understand and reduce the environmental impact of your software solutions?

As a premier Microsoft partner, we are passionate about the power of modern cloud solutions and the benefits they represent for software-driven companies (ISV’s). Offering modern, scalable, and accessible solutions. But we’re equally conscious of the impact that the ever-increasing compute power can have on the environment. We believe modern software solutions are most successful when they can utilize sustainable technologies.

Microsoft cloud solutions have been carbon neutral since 2012 and last year Microsoft has aggressively increased the ambition to be carbon negative in 2030. To understand the exact math and science behind this commitment, please also see this YouTube video.

Microsoft is implementing a multi-step plan of realistic and achievable goals, starting with implementing new procurement processes to enable and incentivize their suppliers to reduce their emissions. In 2025 all data centers, buildings, and campuses will use 100% renewable energy. By 2030 Microsoft will remove more carbon than it emits, setting them on a path to remove by 2050 all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.

Microsoft Pathway to carbon negative by 2030

These are very impressive goals, empowering Microsoft Cloud customers around the world. If you want to be part of this movement, hop on the Azure motion and enjoy not only the power of the cloud but also lower the carbon impact of your workloads. Microsoft has released an excellent tool to discover the potential benefits from fully migrating to Azure and assists you in reporting your carbon footprint for IT services.

Microsoft emissions from contoso cloud usage

 

Insights with the calculator

By using the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator, you will:

  • Better understand the impact of cloud sustainability on your emissions;
  • Get insights into your organization’s carbon emissions related to Microsoft cloud services with this sustainability transparency solution;
  • Gain visibility using a sustainability dashboard to understand greenhouse gas emissions associated with Dynamics 365 and Azure cloud usage;
  • Learn the root cause of emissions changes by tracking actual and avoided emissions over time;
  • Measure the environmental impact of Microsoft cloud services on your carbon footprint with consistent and accurate carbon accounting;
  • And calculate how to further reduce emissions by moving additional applications and services to the cloud.

How Intercept contributes

Intercept is a driver of Azure and therefore contributes to the carbon negative motion of Microsoft. The deployment of Azure is tremendously efficient and lowers co2 emissions compared to traditional hosting or on-prem solutions. As an organization, we have a 'work where you want, when you want' policy, we use electric cars, and nowadays we don't just offer a lease car but a smart mobility budget. An example of this is that we encourage employees to come to work by bike by giving them travel allowances for this as well.

More information? 

If you want to know more, please read “How small steps power big sustainability goals”. Get the Emissions Impact Dashboard in AppSource.

Do you have questions about the calculator and how you can reduce?