Study extra about how we’re making progress in direction of our sustainability commitments via the Sustainable by design weblog collection, beginning with Sustainable by design: Advancing the sustainability of AI.
As we work to advance the sustainability of our enterprise, we’re additionally advancing the sustainability of the datacenter infrastructure wanted to ship cloud and AI improvements. At Microsoft, we’re working to decarbonize datacenters by specializing in how we design, construct, and function. To help this work, we’re additionally investing to assist scale markets for low-carbon constructing supplies.
As a sector, constructing supplies equivalent to metal and concrete are a few of the highest contributors to the embodied carbon of recent development, collectively producing an estimated 13.5% of worldwide carbon emissions.1 Embodied carbon is a measure of the carbon emitted throughout the manufacturing, set up, upkeep, and disposal of a product or materials.
Improvements in lower-carbon metal and concrete are rising across the globe, nevertheless, these markets are nonetheless nascent and wish vital funding to deliver the wanted provide on-line. By way of our $1 billion Local weather Innovation Fund and the collaboration of pioneering groups throughout datacenter engineering and procurement, we’re investing to speed up these markets.
Innovating for vitality effectivity
Discover how we’re advancing the facility and vitality effectivity of AI
Novel development supplies and new strategies of making these supplies present promise in sectors which are historically described as “onerous to abate,” these are sectors we consider are essential to abate. For instance, we’re breaking floor on mass timber datacenters, investing to speed up market availability of near-zero carbon metal, and increasing choices for low-carbon concrete in development.
Innovating with mass timber datacenter development to scale back embodied carbon
In Virginia, we’re constructing our first datacenters made with superstrong, ultra-lightweight wooden with the objective of lowering the embodied carbon of the buildings by 35% in comparison with standard metal development, and 65% in comparison with typical precast concrete.
Though this can be a novel strategy to datacenter development, it’s a cloth we’ve used earlier than. In 2021, once we selected cross-laminated timber (CLT) for a brand new constructing on our Silicon Valley campus, the strategy introduced quite a few environmental advantages. With ecological design parts starting from water reuse to wash vitality manufacturing to new public pathways and restoration of native ecology, the construction earned recognition for sustainable design excellence from the American Institute of Architects.
The CLT market is well-established in Europe and quickly rising in the US, attributable to demand within the residential phase and adaptableness of CLT to new designs. Nevertheless, our revolutionary work to use this materials to constructing a hyperscale datacenter has required everybody to work in a different way, from our engineers to our procurement groups to the suppliers concerned in development.
As a result of CLT is prefabricated offsite, it brings further advantages equivalent to a quicker and safer onsite set up than conventional corrugated metal. Constructed generally out of spruce, pine, or fir, CLT reveals exceptional structural integrity and resilience even beneath excessive temperatures, creating a char and offering insulation in eventualities the place metal is prone to fail. However few datacenter constructing specialists have expertise with the fabric, lowering the provision of expert contractors, and the supplies come at a premium price in sure areas.
All through this undertaking, our groups have risen to the problem by sharing greatest practices throughout disciplines, crafting new procurement methods, guaranteeing skilling pathways, and dealing collaboratively to validate new materials mixtures. Increasing the constructing materials choices for datacenter development opens new paths towards reaching local weather targets and contributes to increasing the marketplace for sustainable constructing supplies, together with markets for regionally sourced supplies and contractors working with these supplies.
Accelerating market availability of near-zero carbon metal
Final 12 months, Microsoft’s Local weather Innovation Fund turned an investor in Sweden’s Stegra (previously H2 Inexperienced Metal), which is constructing the world’s first large-scale inexperienced metal plant in northern Sweden, reaching as much as a 95% discount in carbon emissions in comparison with conventional steelmaking.2 One other promising funding inside our Local weather Innovation Fund is Boston Steel, which makes use of renewable electrical energy and a singular course of that generates oxygen as an alternative of carbon dioxide when making metal.
As well as, Microsoft is a founding member of the Sustainable Metal Consumers Platform of RMI, a first-of-its-kind patrons’ group accelerating metal decarbonization via collaborative procurement and market motion. Our engineering and procurement groups are working to include low-emissions metal and repurposed metal in new development.
Increasing choices for low-carbon concrete for development
The majority of emissions related to concrete come from cement manufacturing. A key ingredient of cement is limestone, which is usually heated with clay to round 2,650 levels Fahrenheit in a coal or gas-fired kiln the place it undergoes a chemical response known as calcination that releases carbon dioxide as a byproduct. In Washington, our pilot program makes use of cement options like biogenic limestone (grown in place by algae as an alternative of quarried) and fly ash and slag, testing mixes that may decrease the embodied carbon in concrete by greater than 50% in comparison with conventional mixes.
Whereas transitioning to low-carbon concrete manufacturing is just not as capital intensive as metal manufacturing, the availability chain is fragmented and manufacturing processes will be advanced—inflicting delays and slowing adoption of recent strategies. Because of this, we’re trying to broaden choices for development throughout the low-carbon concrete worth chain.
One of many Local weather Innovation Fund’s earliest investments is CarbonCure, an organization deploying low carbon concrete applied sciences that inject captured carbon dioxide into concrete, the place the CO2 instantly mineralizes and is completely embedded as nanosized rocks inside the bodily product. This not solely acts as a carbon sink but in addition strengthens the fabric, enabling a discount within the quantity of carbon-intensive cement required. One other funding is Prometheus Supplies, an organization producing zero-carbon bio-concrete via a singular course of that mixes naturally occurring microalgae with different elements.
Discover the Sustainable by design collection
With these investments, we goal to facilitate the commercialization of supplies improvements that may make an outsized influence on carbon discount for our personal buildings and for constructed environments all over the world.
Study extra about our work to advance the sustainability of AI with the Sustainable by design weblog collection:
1 Nature Analysis, Cement and metal—9 steps to internet zero.
2 Stegra, Inexperienced platforms—inexperienced hydrogen, inexperienced iron, and inexperienced metal.
