Tech giant Microsoft has pledged to remove “all of the carbon” from the environment that it has emitted since the company was founded in 1975. To achieve this target by 2050, the company aims to become “carbon negative” this decade, removing more carbon from the environment than it emits. This goes beyond “carbon neutrality”, as pledged by Amazon, which aims to add no net carbon to the atmosphere. Microsoft says it will achieve carbon negativity by using a range of natural and tech-based carbon capture and storage approaches. The company also announced it was setting up a $1 billion (£765m) climate innovation fund to develop carbon-tackling technologies. The announcement was largely welcomed by environmentalists, however Greenpeace warned that Microsoft still needed to address its ongoing relationship with oil and gas companies. Tech companies’ manufacturing and data-processing centres create large amounts of carbon dioxide. Other tech firms, including Facebook, Google and Apple have so far not made “carbon negative” commitments.

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