Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic CSR

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Strategic CSR - Microsoft (+ Delta)

The article in the url below from Bloomberg Green Daily's newsletter is disappointing, for many reasons:

"Staff at Microsoft have told some developers of carbon removal credits that the company is pausing what is currently the world’s biggest program for financing the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere."

To give you an idea of how big a blow this is to the market for carbon removal credits, the chart accompanying the article makes the extent of Microsoft's impact abundantly clear:

To be specific:

"Microsoft is by far the largest investor in removal credits, having set an ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030. The company is engaged in deals across a variety of technologies, with Bloomberg estimating that its purchases in 2025 accounted for 96% of the entire market."

The article develops a line of argument that seeks to explain the decision to pull back but, in the process, instead makes clear why Microsoft's continued engagement is more essential than ever:

"While Microsoft has expanded its carbon removals program, the company’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly on the back of its investment in data centers needed to power artificial intelligence."

Microsoft has been progressive on this issue for a long time, and was one of the first companies to account for an internal carbon price to help assess the ROI on projects (see Strategic CSR - Carbon tax). It is disappointing to see them pull back from this market, especially when technological innovation seems at a formative stage. But, they are clearly not alone -- on this or other related stories. To learn about companies dropping their 'net zero' targets, for example, see the article in the second url, below:

"Delta Air Lines Inc. quietly scrubbed a pair of key environmental targets from its sustainability web page. The Atlanta-based carrier deleted its pledge to use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for 10% of its jet fuel by 2030. It also rephrased its quest to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 as an “aspiration,” rather than a 'goal.'”

As the graphic accompanying that article shows, Delta is far from where it would need to be to achieve the targets it (voluntarily) set itself -- unfortunately, they are not an outlier in the airline industry (see also Strategic CSR - Executive pay):