The last few years have seen the tech industry take increasing measures toward reducing and improving its environmental impact in ways big and small. HP has used reclaimed ocean plastics in its ink cartridges, laptop cases, and Dragonfly laptop[1]. Apple, once a target of Greenpeace ire, now unfailingly touts the superior recyclability of its products and has vowed to make its products completely from recyclable materials[2] by 2030. And Tesla, of course, brought the dream of the electric car back from the dead[3] and has inspired a wave of electric vehicles from brands old[4] and new[5].
But, in many ways, the most significant product that large tech companies can make greener is their own operations. In addition to vowing to make all of its products from recycled materials by 2030, Apple has vowed to make its products entirely with clean energy by that time. Google, which has claimed carbon neutrality since 2007, has vowed to be carbon-free by 2030[6]. And last year, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge[7], which aims to achieve net-zero carbon across its businesses by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement target. The Climate Pledge has now attracted 31 signatories[8], including household names across and beyond tech such as Best Buy, Verizon, Uber, JetBlue, Mercedes-Benz, and Unilever.
While these companies span the US and Europe, Amazon needed to look only across Lake Washington to find one of the Pledge's most recent additions: Microsoft. The addition is particularly noteworthy given both Amazon's and Microsoft's position in cloud computing.
According to data released in October by Canalys, Amazon and Microsoft collectively account for about half of global spending on cloud infrastructure[9] so