Dive Brief:
- Microsoft is rebuffing claims that it is putting a pause on its carbon removal program, following media reports that the company had begun telling suppliers and partners that it was halting future purchases.
- Heatmap first reported the pause on Friday, and Bloomberg followed with separate reporting of such conversations on Saturday, both citing sources familiar with the matter. However, Microsoft Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa told ESG Dive Monday that the company’s “carbon removal program has not ended.”
- Microsoft declined to provide a clarification on whether the company has currently adjusted its carbon removal purchasing volumes or pace.
Dive Insight:
Microsoft was responsible for 87% of carbon removal purchases in 2025 and 56% of removal purchases in Q1 of this year, according to a Monday report from carbon dioxide removals registry and data analytics platform CDR.fyi. The tech conglomerate announced the purchase of 622,000 metric tons of removals as recently as last week.
The company has several short- and long-term climate goals, including becoming carbon negative by 2030 and removing all of the carbon dioxide it has emitted — either directly or through electrical consumption — since it was founded by 2050. In addition to last week’s bioenergy-focused CDR agreement — signed with Canada’s first majority Indigenous-owned carbon removal project — Microsoft also inked the largest soil removal deal by tonnage with Indigo Ag in January, adding to its portfolio.
Nakagawa said that Microsoft continues “to both build on and support our existing portfolio of both nature-based and technology-based solutions.” The company has inked agreements through a variety of removal pathways, including afforestation, enhanced rock weathering, biochar and bioenergy-based carbon capture.
“Our decarbonization approach combines reduction, removal, and efficiency, and carbon removal is one piece of that equation,” Nakagawa said in her statement. “At times we may adjust the pace or volume of our carbon removal procurement as we continue to refine our approach toward sustainability goals. Any adjustments we make are part of our disciplined approach — not a change in ambition."
As of April 13, the tech company has been responsible for 78.5% of total disclosed contracted durable carbon removals, with over 36.4 million metric tons of removals purchased, according to CDR.fyi’s report.
Carbon Business Council Executive Director Ben Rubin told ESG Dive Wednesday that “there's generally recognition of the really catalytic role that Microsoft has played” in scaling up the sector. Rubin, however, noted that there remains a question of “what will happen next for Microsoft?” CBC is composed largely of carbon market suppliers, as well as registries and other parts of the carbon removal ecosystem.
Rubin told ESG Dive in a Wednesday interview that “for the market to really continue to thrive and succeed, we need to have a diversity of buyers. and the market can't rely on any one single actor.” Looking forward, Rubin said the question is how to continue to bring a diversity of buyers into the space.
Buyers linked to Frontier Climate — an initiative backed by JPMorgan, Stripe, Meta, Alphabet and others — were the next largest single buyer, accounting for 4.0% of contracted removals, according to the CDR.fyi report. The rest of the market accounts for 17.5% of CDR purchases, having purchased over 8.1 million metric tons of removals to date.
“The fact that we've been seeing new buyers enter the market this year [and] the fact that we've seen buyers who have purchased carbon removal before showing appetite to continue buying carbon removal after they've gone through their initial round of purchases is showing that there is demand building in the private sector.”
Rubin said that the carbon removal market is increasingly moving from a start-up to a scale-up phase and believes that there will continue to be increased diversification of private sector removal purchases.
