Microsoft has just four more years to reach its ambitious goal of removing more planet-warming carbon that it produces. But the company’s annual sustainability report, released Thursday, shows it’s moving in the opposite direction, as its 2025 emissions spiked 25% over the previous year.
Despite the troubling increase, Microsoft leaders say they remain committed to the longer-term goal.
“We continue to really be focused around carbon negativity by 2030,” said Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer, in an interview with GeekWire.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company is the latest tech giant to fall further behind its climate targets as they invest billions of dollars in new, energy-hungry data centers to power the AI boom. Amazon’s carbon footprint jumped 16% last year, while Google’s greenhouse gas emissions swelled 18%.
The report also shows how much energy use drove that increase, with Microsoft’s total electricity consumption growing by 24% last year.
In total, Microsoft produced 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025, which would have been roughly 34 million metric tons without carbon reducing initiatives including purchasing clean electricity and sustainable fuels, Xbox console efficiency and Surface device decarbonization. The reduced number puts the company’s footprint roughly on par with the total emissions of Panama or Lithuania.
In addition to data center expansion, Nakagawa said, the carbon increase was also driven by Microsoft’s decision to stop buying unbundled, short-term renewable energy certificates, or RECs — a mechanism companies can use to quickly lower their reported emissions for a given year. Microsoft is instead prioritizing longer-term initiatives with bigger impact, she said.
The challenge Microsoft wants to answer, she said, is how to take a “portfolio approach” that spans carbon dioxide removal, carbon-free electricity, sustainable materials, and fuels — addressing all of them together rather than in isolation.
Image from Microsoft’s 2026 sustainability report.
Where Microsoft made gains
The annual report highlighted areas of success. That includes:
Matching its electricity consumption worldwide with clean energy sources.
For the first time, replenishing more fresh water globally than it withdrew, making important progress on its 2030 goal of being water positive across operations.
Achieving 92% reuse and recycling of decommissioned cloud servers and components for the second consecutive year.
Reaching a total of 40 gigawatts of clean power purchase agreements across 26 countries, with 19 gigawatts currently online. (Forty gigawatts is roughly enough power to serve 30-40 million typical U.S. homes at once.)
Scrutiny over recent moves
Microsoft’s sustainability disclosures come after a series of announcements and news reports that have raised concerns among climate advocates.
Last month, Microsoft and Chevron announced an agreement to build a natural gas facility in Texas with a 2.67 gigawatt capacity, providing dedicated electricity to the tech company for 20 years.
In May, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft was considering scaling down or scuttling a pledge to match its electricity use with carbon-free power around the clock by 2030.
In April, the New York Times reported that Microsoft was pausing future purchases of carbon removal credits, after years as the market’s top buyer.
Nakagawa said the company has not canceled any removal projects, though she did not provide specifics about new purchases going forward. “We’re just continuing to take a hard look at each of the deals that are coming through,” she said, and looking for “credible opportunities to scale.”
Asked about Microsoft’s commitment to purchasing clean energy 24/7 — an approach that would eliminate reliance on coal- or gas-powered energy when wind and solar aren’t available — Nakagawa declined to confirm it. “We still are looking towards opportunities around carbon-free electricity,” while focusing on the 2030 carbon negative goals, she said.
As to the natural gas deal, the chief sustainability officer said Microsoft has also contracted to purchase 4.7 gigawatts of renewable power in Texas alone and that the company evaluates its energy investments as part of a broader mix.
Looking for efficiencies elsewhere
Even as data centers remain the prime driver of Microsoft’s rising energy use and emissions, the company points to other steps aimed at reducing the environmental footprint of the facilities.
That includes increasing the use of lower-carbon steel and concrete and incorporating mass timber into data center buildings. And In the past year, Microsoft has added a seventh Circular Center — one of several facilities worldwide where the company recycles and reuses electronics from data center operations.
Microsoft is also working with developers to use AI models more efficiently and build right-sized products. AI agents can review, test and improve code so it uses less energy when it runs, Nakagawa said.
“I definitely think there’s an opportunity here,” she said.
Editor’s note: A correction was made regarding Microsoft’s total energy use last year, replacing a data point on Scope 2 emission, and clarifying the steps taken to reduce its carbon emissions to 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Optical media is great — it’s pretty high density, relatively durable, and decently long-lasting if
“That’ll buff out” is very often true when it comes to disks.
well cared for. If not well cared for, well, it’s only relatively durable, and we’ve probably all picked up a second-hand disk that’s too scratched to use. The X-Box 360 is notorious for causing circular damage, and while decent disk cleaners were easy to get in the 90s, we’re not sure how far we trust what’s on offer at retailers today. Hence [Dennis], aka [RetroGameRevival]’s RGR ezBuff polishing machine, which does exactly what it says on the tin: buffs disks to a polish, easily.
We’d say the whole thing is 3D printed, but of course you still need a motor and controller — if you had to turn a crank, that would just be a Buff polishing machine, no ez — and we’ve yet to see a printer poop out polishing compound. If you build it, keep in mind that you’re taking the top layer of material off the disk to polish scratches away, so don’t overdo it. It’s entirely possible to ruin a disk beyond repair with too-aggressive buffing; it’s also possible for disks to be scratched too deeply to save. Polishing can’t save genuine disk rot, though in our experience you’re more likely to find scratched disks than rotten ones. Still, [Dennis]’s birthday gift to the community — it was apparently released on his birthday — should keep more than a few disks out of the trash.
With Sony getting out of the disk game, physical media is becoming more precious than ever, so it’s good to see what looks like a quality polishing option for those of us who either never had a polisher or didn’t save theirs. If you really want your disks to last, maybe we should bring back CD caddies.
Once upon a time, there was a bit of a fad for fingerprint authentication in laptops and desktop computers. It has long since faded, but [superdog] wanted just such a device for Linux and Mac machines. Thus, it was time to build one.
[superdog] designed the device, nicknamed immurok, as a tool for people who use external keyboards, and do lots of terminal work on Mac and Linux machines. Repeat password requests can interrupt one’s flow when hustling at the keys, so immurok was designed to ease this pain.
The device is based on a WCH CH592F microcontroller, which comes with Bluetooth connectivity out of the box. This allows immurok to connect wirelessly to the machine of your choice, advertising itself as a standard Bluetooth HID keyboard device. Fingerprint-wise, scanning is done with an R559S capacitive sensor, which verifies the match locally so there’s no transmitting biometric data anywhere. On the computer side, Linux is setup to use a CLI/TUI app plus PAM integration to handle authorization for system logins and sudo in the terminal. On the Mac platform, it’s used with a menu bar app, with PAM integration for admin prompts. There’s also a separate helper path for using it with the lock screen.
If you’re sick of entering your password all the time and wish unlocking your PC was more like unlocking your phone, this might be the project for you. We’ve seen similar projects before, too. If you’re whipping up fun gear for biometric auth, don’t hesitate to let us know on the tipsline.
SPOILER ALERT: Jeff Booth does not know what the world will look like in 2036.
I know, I know… You probably wanted to hear from Jeff — author of The Price of Tomorrow and someone with incredible foresight and vision — that all eight billion of us would be living in the type of abundance he often talks about on podcasts.
You likely wanted to read that Jeff foresees Bitcoin replacing fiat by 2036 and that we’ll all be able to just kick back and relax as we enjoy living in a deflationary system by then.
I, too, was slightly disappointed when he didn’t paint a picture of a Bitcoin-fueled utopia that will exist a decade from now.
That said, in true Jeff Booth fashion, he offered some perspective that was perhaps even more profound than expected:
“It can exist for them right this second,” said Jeff in regard to when people can begin to reap the benefits of existing in a Bitcoin-buoyed system. “The question is ‘Do people move their time and energy to this new system?’”
Leave it to Jeff, someone who I often refer to as the Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now) of Bitcoin to remind us that we don’t have wait for a day in the far off future when Bitcoin has transformed the world, we can begin to use right now it to transform our own personal world and the worlds of those with whom we engage.
“We are the change,” said Jeff. “We always have been.”
There’s just one caveat to Jeff’s message, though…
To fully experience the benefits that Bitcoin offers, we cannot simply view it as another asset within a broken system, we have to see it for what it actually is: a protocol.
Bitcoin As A Protocol
According to Jeff, seeing Bitcoin as anything but a protocol will not only result in our not fully benefitting from it, but ultimately in the failure of the protocol itself.
That’s a lot, I know.
Let’s unpack it.
When Jeff looks out at the world, he sees a spectrum of Bitcoin enthusiasts — and, of course, those who will continue to simply dismiss Bitcoin.
The latter will resume focusing their efforts on trying to reform the broken and insolvent system that continues to steal their time and wealth while consistently blaming the powers that be for their lot in life, further handing over their power to those actors in the process.
If you’re reading this article, you’re likely not one of those types. You, instead, exist somewhere on a spectrum of Bitcoin understanding that Jeff has conceptualized.
On one side of that spectrum are those who take risky bets with bitcoin or even with other crypto assets in efforts to get rich quickly. This type lends much of their energy to searching for the next scheme to trade. Very few in this world win big and almost all lose over a longer time horizon.
One level up from that are those who see bitcoin as a store of value. The problem with this perspective is that the asset is trapped within the broken monetary and financial systems instead of replacing them. If bitcoin only remains a store of value, its ownership will continue to centralize over time, leading to a Bitcoin elite, a new breed of kings, as opposed to a world in which all human beings benefit from bitcoin. This scenario will also lead to continued issues with Bitcoin custodians.
“If we continue to have a debt-based system on top of bitcoin, bitcoin will continue to be held by custodians who will get liquidated time and time again as they take risks with their customers’ bitcoin,” said Jeff. “It’ll look like Celsius and BlockFi over and over and over again.”
Finally, there are those who see Bitcoin as a protocol.
They understand that Bitcoin emerges in layers, each of them enabling it to be used more easily and privately as money. It’s those for whom Bitcoin will serve as a true catalyst.
“It’s only if you view Bitcoin through the protocol lens that the world will change for you,” said Jeff.
“Every single other one of those perspectives relies on ‘It’s somebody else, not me.’ But the last one says ‘I create the future from my intention,’” he added.
“So, when we think about 2036, the real question is ‘How many people realize that they have the agency to change the world?’”
While this may seem like a relatively easy question to answer for oneself, it becomes more challenging when considering that we exist in a world that is constantly trying to distract us from what Bitcoin truly is.
Don’t Get Caught
From flavor of the month FUD to hero worship, it’s easy to give up your power.
“People often give their agency away to the likes of those who spread fear around quantum computing breaking Bitcoin or to those talking about how Jeffrey Epstein tried to infiltrate Bitcoin Core,” said Jeff.
Much of the Core vs. Knots debate was also driven by fear, which also siphoned people’s power, according to Jeff. With regard to this particular issue, Jeff noticed the name calling and ad hominem attacks, but opted not to contribute to the drama. Instead, he simply saw it as a signal that the issue was worth investigating. He believes that the debate offered people an important opportunity to fight for what they want Bitcoin to be.
“We’re used to seeing only a small part of consensus and not seeing views that are outside of it,” said Jeff. “The consensus mechanism and the agency of all participants fighting for what they see bitcoin as allows each person to see the entire debate and make their choice of what bitcoin is to them.”
Jeff went on to say that instead of being driven by fear and blindly digging in with one side or the other in such debates, it’s important to look inward at these times. Both doing so and advocating for what you want Bitcoin to be is ultimately how the protocol stays safe in his eyes.
“If there are enough hypervigilant people focused on the issues, Bitcoin stays secure,” said Jeff. “If there are enough people building on this and they are all hypervigilant as they build, it stays decentralized.”
Bitcoin enthusiasts also give away their agency to figures in the Bitcoin space who convince them that bitcoin is nothing more than a store of value — digital capital, if you will — according to Jeff.
“If you talk about digital capital and digital assets or building a debt-based system on top of Bitcoin, you aren’t viewing Bitcoin as a protocol,” explained Jeff. “Building a debt-based system on top of Bitcoin is centralizing, which isn’t good for Bitcoin. If you’re trying to concentrate bitcoin and become a new king, then both Bitcoin and the game you’re playing will ultimately fail.”
Jeff attributes the fact that some aren’t able to see how building a system that resembles the system Bitcoin was designed to replace is ultimately doomed to the notion that many are trapped in old mental models. In other words, we often bring our baggage from the old system into this new one. Those who see Bitcoin as a protocol, those using it as money in Bitcoin circular economies on a day-to-day basis, fundamentally understand Bitcoin through a different lens. They intuitively know that every choice, want, and need is a choice to distribute value or give value. And as bitcoin becomes more ubiquitous as money, then those playing financial games with bitcoin will ultimately be forced to give up their coins.
“You can try to create debt on top of bitcoin, but, eventually, as Bitcoin adoption increases, prices will begin falling so fast that those trying to centralize Bitcoin will have to figure out a way to deliver value to society in excess of what they’re spending to pay back and service their debt, which they won’t be able to do, forcing them to distribute their bitcoin,” said Jeff.
In short, Bitcoin inevitably liquidates those playing a zero-sum game; therefore, according to Jeff, it’s best to focus on what you’re doing to provide value to the world rather than focusing on how prominent figures in the Bitcoin space are rebuilding the same type of debt-based system that we’re trying to escape on top of bitcoin.
Why Bitcoin Remains Decentralized and Secure
For this issue, the editorial staff and writers involved have presupposed that Bitcoin is still sufficiently decentralized and secure come 2036. The truth is, though, as Jeff points out, if we all don’t claim our own power and embrace Bitcoin as a protocol, then it centralizes and fails.
Put another way, Bitcoin is not inevitable.
Yet, at the same time, Jeff is all but 100% convinced that Bitcoin does, in fact, succeed.
Why is that? you might ask.
Well, to use Jeff’s own words, he believes that Bitcoin will win because he “believes in us.”
Now, I know what you might be thinking: How could Jeff believe in us?… I mean, has he seen all the pleb slop out there? Has he seen how quickly many have been to abandon their Bitcoin vision and morals in pursuit of fiat gains? And does he think we’re all as good at thinking for ourselves as he is?
While I didn’t ask Jeff those questions, I’d imagine his answers to the second and third ones are “yes” and that he’s too humble to even respond to the final one. And as for the first question, he answered it without my posing it to him directly.
“As time goes on, more and more people discover what Bitcoin truly is, and each of them begins to move their agency into this space,” he explained. “In the process, people discover that their agency matters and that they can bend reality to their will. And when we share different thoughts about Bitcoin with others, it opens people’s minds, further causing them to shift their time and energy. I’m so positive that Bitcoin succeeds because I believe in the best in us, and I’ve already seen so many people move their time into this space and how that has had such a positive impact on them.”
Still, Jeff, c’mon! Most of us are still simply trying to convince our friends and family members that Bitcoin isn’t a scam, much less something that they should be moving their time and energy into. Even the idea of moving one’s time and energy into Bitcoin seems like an abstract and foreign concept to most people today.
Jeff gets that, too. And so he offered a caveat:
“Not everybody has to move their time — only a small fraction do.”
Now, given that my intention in writing this piece isn’t simply to help share Jeff’s perspective but to encourage you to embrace your own agency and power, I’m not going to share how much that small fraction is composed of in Jeff’s mind. Doing so might put you back into the mindset you may have had before you started reading this piece, the “Bitcoin is inevitable, and my efforts mean nothing in regard to its success or failure” mindset. Since that’s neither productive nor empowering, let’s not go there. The point is that Jeff believes that there are enough of us out there who will “hold the line and fight for freedom” as we work to maintain what he terms “the honest chain.”
“__% of people will cheat and go back to the dishonest chain,” said Jeff. “They’ll tell themselves ‘I needed to do it for my family.’ Deep down, they won’t have wanted to move to the dishonest chain, but they will feel that the consequences of not doing so were just too great. So, they’ll take the bribe. They’ll tell themselves ‘If not me, somebody else will do it, and I have to do it, too.”
Though that remaining percentage of people who support the honest chain may be small, it will be more than enough to have the balance of most people eventually move with them, according to Jeff.
“That small group forces a foundation from which others can benefit,” said Jeff.
A beautiful dimension of Bitcoin is that it’s a group, as opposed to a single figure, that keeps the network safe. And what shields this group is that Bitcoin enables them to remain anonymous. This can be contrasted with public leaders or religious figures who’ve challenged power and been martyred for it.
“Those leaders and religious figures had to be killed because they were open and very dangerous to the system of power,” said Jeff. “Now, those who want to stand up for what’s right no matter what to keep Bitcoin protected can do so because privacy is built into its layers. If this fight were occurring in the open, the intransigent minority, those who want to stand up for what is right, would be knocked off in time; it would be too dangerous for them to stand up.”
In this light, Bitcoin could be viewed as the greatest tool for human liberation we’ve ever seen. And the most exciting part is, we may have all of the components we need to scale it securely and in a manner that offers people transactional privacy.
Scaling Bitcoin: We May Already Have All We Need
Given how often Jeff refers to scaling Bitcoin in layers, I asked him how many layers he envisions Bitcoin having by 2036, anticipating that he had some ideas for layers that few of us could have yet conceptualized.
To my surprise, his answer to my question was direct: “I think we have almost everything already.”
(LFG.)
“We have Bitcoin, composed of energy, mining, and the consensus rules,” began Jeff. “Next, we have Lightning, Liquid, Ark, etc. This is the transport layer where you can now transport value instantly at very fast speeds. On top of or integrated with that, you have fedimints for ecash, the privacy layer. We also have Nostr, the identity layer, web of trust, and privacy layer. And that might be all we require. Everything there is enough to enable all applications to take part in the first global free market that’s ever existed.”
But what about a capital markets layer? Will we see tokenized assets on a Bitcoin layer by 2036, or at any point in the future for that matter?
According to Jeff, that’s a hard “no.”
“Tokenization is part of the fiat scam,” said Jeff. “The idea with tokenization is that people are going to take more assets and drive more money into those assets. In the world I’m talking about, you don’t need tokenization because the protocol preserves value for you — everything is priced in prices that are falling.”
According to Jeff, tokenized assets, whether on traditional ledgers (e.g., brokerage accounts) and on blockchains, are part of the current system, which is extractive. In a world underpinned by bitcoin, people won’t need to rely on tokenized assets to preserve their wealth.
“In this new world, capital markets get way smaller,” said Jeff. “In 1900, capital markets only made up about 1% of the economy, and now it’s closer to 40%. Tokenization helps the extractive economy carry on; it becomes unnecessary in a world in which Bitcoin succeeds as a protocol.”
Jeff contextualized his point by describing how he and the team at ego death capital, the Bitcoin venture capital firm that he co-founded, think about making investments in a world where bitcoin continues to appreciate in value.
“At ego death, we deploy risk capital where we think we can exceed a 45% IRR (internal rate of return),” Jeff explained. (Bitcoin’s IRR over the past 15 years is approximately 45%.) “Most startups don’t get funded with debt. Family and friends typically fund startups and what they’re doing is saying ‘I believe you can do this,’ while not necessarily considering the fact that most startups fail because it’s so hard to create value in the free market. Investors only come in when they see a startup starting to win and when they think a business will provide tons of value moving forward.”
And most investors in public markets today are only investing because fiat currencies are losing value at such an alarming rate. In a world that’s on a bitcoin standard, speculating in markets as a means to preserve value is no longer necessary.
Start Today
Each of our actions in this Bitcoin space have power.
They are helping to chart a course in which, by 2036, there will be exponentially more of us reaping the benefits of living on a bitcoin standard.
While that future surely isn’t promised, Jeff feels confident that we’re on the right path.
“Our future is created by these collisions of us talking to each other, learning from one another, and expanding our knowledge to other people,” he explained.
Plus, the longer Jeff works with and invests in high-integrity builders in the Bitcoin space, the more confident he feels that Bitcoin remains decentralized and secure, as it must for it to succeed.
With that said, Jeff understands that many will sell out as the fight continues to be brought to Bitcoin’s doorstep, which is why he says that we should feel free to “slay our heroes.” Instead, he believes, we should look within ourselves for answers.
The Bitcoin story isn’t one of looking out to or up to; it’s one of looking inward and embracing responsibility and critical thinking, both of which are necessary in pursuit of increased personal power and agency.
If we want a world transformed by Bitcoin in 2036, we have to start by making the essential personal transformations and moving more of our time and energy into Bitcoin today.
This piece is featured in the latest Print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The 2036 Issue. We’re sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.
Wind Wall, a wind farm in California’s Tehachapi Mountains, produces renewable energy for Amazon Web Services. (Amazon Photo)
Amazon’s carbon footprint jumped 16% last year after several years of little or no increase. The company emitted nearly 80.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025. By comparison, that’s slightly higher than the nation of New Zealand’s emissions.
Amazon disclosed its climate-related data in its most comprehensive sustainability report to date, which includes a breakdown of its carbon sources, water use and other environmental impacts.
Not surprisingly, energy use showed the biggest rate of increase in the 2025 carbon tally as Amazon and other tech companies are working to rapidly expand their data center capacity to meet AI computing demand.
For the first time since 2019, the company also reported an uptick in its “carbon intensity” — a measure of how much carbon was emitted relative to each dollar of revenue. Amazon has promoted this metric as a sign that it can decouple its growth from its climate impacts.
*Million of metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent. † Grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per dollar of revenue. ‡ Carbon emissions for 2025 were calculated using a market-based method, including the application of Environmental Attribute Credits (EACs). (2025 Amazon Sustainability Report)
Despite emissions moving in the wrong direction and ongoing data center-driven challenges, the Seattle-area company remains committed to its pledge of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
When it comes to that goal, “I remain confident and optimistic in the overarching vision and the long-term progress we continue to make toward it,” said Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, in the foreword to the company’s annual report.
The report highlights areas of success that include:
Data center efficiency: Amazon’s data centers are 9% more efficient than the public cloud average and 30% more efficient than on-premises data centers at directing energy toward computing rather than cooling, lighting or overhead.
Data center water use: Amazon is seven times more efficient in its water use than the industry average thanks to its use of air cooling at most sites, most of the year.
100% clean energy overall: For the third year running, Amazon matched its company-wide electricity use with an equivalent volume of purchased clean energy, although it technically still draws on fossil fuels for some of its energy.
Electric vehicle fleet: It has the largest corporate EV fleet in North America, with more than 52,700 delivery vans worldwide. It’s halfway to meeting its 2030 goal of 100,000 EVs.
The company also reported improvements in reducing packaging and plastic use in delivered items; increasing use of low-carbon building materials in data center construction; and progress toward becoming water positive at its data centers, meaning it aims to replenish more water to communities than it uses.
The Amazon-backed Climate Pledge — an effort to get other organizations to commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 — has grown to 656 signatories after adding 107 companies this year. It marks a notable increase at a time when companies are growing quieter about climate commitments, with some stepping back from earlier goals.
But the surge in data center investment shows little sign of slowing, which will keep complicating Amazon’s path to lower emissions. CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon expects to spend a record $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, including “AI, chips, robotics, and low-Earth orbit satellites.”
Not all reactions to that buildout have been positive — even within the company. Members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice this month testified before the Seattle City Council in favor of data center requirements for renewable energy and labor protections, though Amazon doesn’t operate any data centers within city limits.
In response to the sustainability report, the employee group was critical of the increased emissions and accused the company of pressuring carbon accounting standards bodies — including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Science-Based Targets Initiative — to adopt weaker rules.
More than 1,000 employees have signed an open letter drafted last year criticizing Amazon’s “warp-speed approach” to its AI development, the group added.
In the report, Amazon CSO Hurst acknowledged that AI-fueled advances could catalyze sustainability solutions or slow progress toward climate goals.
“But what alternative do we have,” she said, “but to continue to invest, learn, and move forward to try to solve one of the world’s most challenging issues?”
Editor’s note: Story updated at 11:56 a.m. with comment from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.
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