Microsoft wants your poop to lower its emissions

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on The Wall Street Journal or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: Microsoft has signed a 12-year deal to purchase 4.9 million metric tons of carbon removal credits from Vaulted Deep, a U.S. company that permanently stores organic waste thousands of feet underground
• The agreement forms part of Microsoft’s expanding portfolio of carbon-removal strategies aimed at offsetting the soaring emissions from its AI data centers
• Vaulted Deep’s approach involves collecting “bioslurry” from human sewage, farm manure, and industrial waste and injecting it into deep rock formations to prevent greenhouse gas emissions

🔭 The context: Microsoft (see sustainability performance) has pledged to be carbon negative by 2030 and to remove all its historical emissions by 2050
• Its AI-driven growth has increased electricity use and emissions, prompting the company to diversify investments into carbon removal technologies, including reforestation in Panama and carbon capture in Norway
• Vaulted Deep, founded in 2023, emerged from oilfield waste-injection technology and now operates facilities in Kansas and California, serving both municipal and agricultural waste streams

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: The partnership demonstrates growing corporate demand for scalable, low-cost carbon removal solutions beyond traditional offsets
• By addressing hard-to-manage waste streams, Vaulted Deep’s method mitigates methane and CO₂ emissions, improves water quality by reducing nutrient runoff, and sequesters carbon durably
• However, the approach is regionally limited and may compete with other uses of organic waste, such as biogas production in Europe, raising questions about scalability and optimal resource use

⏭️ What's next: Vaulted Deep aims to expand capacity, with its new Kansas facility expected to remove 50,000 tons of carbon annually at full operation
• Microsoft will continue diversifying its carbon removal portfolio while navigating growing scrutiny over corporate claims of “net zero” and the durability of offsets
• The carbon credit market — where Vaulted’s credits now trade at about $350 per ton — is likely to evolve as buyers demand more measurable and permanent removals

💬 One quote: “They’re essentially taking biosolids, sealing them out where they can’t harm watersheds or return carbon to the atmosphere — that co-benefits approach is very, very interesting to us,” said Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal

📈 One stat: Between 2020 and 2024, Microsoft reported total emissions of 75.5 million metric tons CO₂ equivalent — a figure it aims to offset and reverse through investments like Vaulted Deep

See on illuminem's Data Hub™ the sustainability performance of Microsoft and its peers Amazon, Alphabet, and IBM

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