Zero waste by 2030 is a cornerstone of our sustainability strategy, along with becoming carbon negative, water positive, and protecting more land than we use. This recent milestone, driven by a culture of innovation and cross-functional collaboration, reflects the growing momentum to integrate zero waste and circularity practices across the technology industry.

Working alongside our recovery partners and suppliers, we are advancing the sustainability of our cloud supply chain and driving toward our zero-waste target in three key areas: (1) piloting the sustainable extraction of rare earth minerals from hard disk drives at scale, (2) continuing to expand our Circular Centers around the world, and (3) co-creating recyclable packaging solutions for transporting datacenter hardware.

Innovating to create a US-based supply of recycled rare earth elements

Today, we’re announcing a collaboration with Western Digital, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling demonstrating how we transformed approximately 50,000 pounds of end-of-life hard disk drives (HDDs) and other materials into critical, high-value materials, recovering rare earth elements (REEs) like neodymium and precious metals like gold and copper. By enabling the REE recovery process to be managed domestically, the program was designed to minimize transportation emissions and boost the resilience of the United States REE supply chain by decreasing dependence on imported materials.

When HDDs are retired from service, the data-carrying components are sanitized and shredded to ensure data security, while other components are separated in order to enable recycling and recirculation of REE materials. This initiative tackled some of the persistent technical challenges with recycling REEs: developing methods to achieve a high recovery rate for the materials, finding a recycling technique that avoids the use of harsh chemicals, and proving that the REE recycling process can be economically viable in the long term.

The innovative, acid-free dissolution of shredded HDDs delivered an impressive 90% high-yield recovery of elemental and rare-earth materials. In addition, the recycling process has an estimated 95% reduction in emissions compared to traditional mining and processing practices, based on life cycle analysis. Setting a new standard for industrial recovery of critical materials, this initiative was one of the first demonstrations of large scale, in-country recycling of essential metals and materials.

Expanding Circular Centers around the globe

Across the company, our teams are working to improve resource efficiency and expand the lifetime value of materials through the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recover. Within our global datacenters, our Microsoft Circular Centers are foundational to our progress, enabling us to process and route decommissioned servers and hardware components to their next useful lives, such as internal reuse, other electronic supply chains, or academies that train datacenter technicians.

By redesigning systems to reduce waste, then reusing and recovering materials wherever possible, we’re saving costs, gaining efficiency, and discovering new opportunities for hardware and infrastructure components. For example, we have successfully reused more than 3.2 million components through internal and external channels in 2024, recognizing a 30% increase or more in value recovery through our Circular Center program.

Since opening our first Circular Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2020, we’ve built five additional facilities in the United States—Boydton, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; and Quincy, Washington—as well as in Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore. To continue to connect our reuse and recycling around the globe, new Circular Centers are planned for Cardiff, Wales; New South Wales, Australia; and San Antonio, Texas.

As we build on progress over the past five years, we’re excited to continue accelerating circularity practices across our business. Preventing waste remains the core of our zero-waste strategy. In addition, we’re continuing to invest in expanding markets for circular solutions and collaborating with local organizations to support circularity in the communities where we operate and work.

Co-creating novel packaging solutions for datacenter hardware

In addition to advancing hardware circularity, we are also tackling the challenge of packaging for all of the hardware and components we use in our datacenters. With more than 150 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) supplying our datacenters, solutions need to ensure the same level of protection and security for servers, racks, and components as traditional packaging methods.

Microsoft datacenters

Sustainability and waste reduction in our datacenters

Learn more

One of the key challenges with packaging for the hardware and components in our datacenters is that it is typically multi-layered—for example, packaging for server racks might include a layer of wood, then glue, foam, then more wood. Because of this, the packaging was traditionally not recyclable via curbside pickup. Over the past 18 months, our Cloud Logistics team has worked with suppliers, logistics service providers, and recyclers to take those pallets and separate the layers, making the materials recyclable through local collaborations.

As a result, packaging from more than 30,000 server racks was processed through our global packaging recycling program, diverting more than 2,500 metric tons of waste from landfills. Moving forward, we are exploring the expansion of this recycling program to other types of packaging such as those used for cables, spares, and network components.

Beyond recycling, our teams look for opportunities to reuse materials within the value chain to reduce the need to procure something new and enable increased waste diversion, whether for hardware, components, or packaging. For example, we are working to reduce the hard-to-recycle, plastic-based, expanded polyethylene (EPE) foam in packaging, replacing it with more sustainable paper and pulp alternatives.

Another impactful way to increase circularity in our supply chain is with innovations in packaging for our server racks. We’re currently testing reusable solutions that advance sustainability and improve business efficiency by reducing cost and providing consistency in the unpacking experience for datacenter teams, all while keeping server racks safe during transport and handling.

Explore Microsoft’s work to reduce waste in our datacenters

To learn more about Microsoft’s work to reduce waste in our datacenters, check out datacenters.microsoft.com/sustainability.

For business leaders interested in developing a circular strategy for their organization, read the whitepaper Four pillars of a successful circular datacenter hardware program with deeper insight into four essential aspects of Microsoft’s Circular Center program. 

The post Sustainable by design: Innovating for zero waste appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.

In a recent playbook, Accelerating sustainability with AI: Innovations for a better future, we outlined our five plays to advance sustainability, providing insight into our work at Microsoft and how business leaders around the world are creating a new path forward.

The reason to choose AI for this work? It has three unique abilities that can help organizations overcome key bottlenecks. AI can: (1) measure, predict, and optimize complex systems, (2) accelerate the development of sustainability solutions, and (3), empower the sustainability workforce. These capabilities make AI a critical enabler of progress.

Accelerate sustainability with AI

Explore actions and innovations

Get the playbook

How can business leaders harness AI to accelerate resilience, efficiency, and sustainability in their organization?

I recently met with Lindsay Myers, Vice President, Commercial Cross Solutions at Microsoft, who leads our Commercial Sustainability business, to talk more about this guidance and how business leaders can harness AI to accelerate resilience, efficiency, and sustainability in their organizations.

Toby: Hi Lindsay, before we dive into the playbook, can you share your thoughts on how organizations are adopting AI to address these interconnected goals of resilience, efficiency, and sustainability?

Lindsay: It’s important to highlight how interconnected these goals are in many organizations today. We often see initiatives started by sustainability teams result in significant cost savings for organizations. This might be efficiency gains for existing operations, or entirely new approaches like digital twins that enable rapid iteration before initial prototypes are built. When companies choose an approach like digital twins, it can reduce the materials needed for physical models—saving time and costs—while improving resilience through agility.

Explore customer and partner examples of AI innovation

Toby: Can you give me some examples of customers and partners who are doing this work today?

Lindsay: AI is making a real difference in helping organizations prepare for climate risks, innovate for maximum efficiency, and solve complex challenges. For example, in Germany, where urban flooding is a major concern, cities are searching for innovative ways to mitigate the impacts of heavy rainfall and its impact on communities and infrastructure. Esri, a global leader in geographic information system (GIS) software is helping cities unlock the power of digital twins driven by geospatial data and AI. This solution helped the City of Stuttgart cut its reality mapping time from five months to 24 hours, enabling local government and public safety staff to understand potential impacts and make decisions faster.

Stadtwerke München (SWM), the municipal utilities company serving Munich, has made it its mission to drive every aspect of the city’s energy, heating, and mobility transition forward. To accomplish this, it needed maximum-efficiency processes, such as predictive infrastructure maintenance and optimized operations planning. It has turned to Microsoft Azure and Azure IoT to efficiently provide power to its public transport fleet of 100% electrified vehicles.

Unlock new possibilities with data and AI

Toby: Those are inspiring examples; they give a real sense of AI’s potential. The playbook outlines 5 plays, or ways that organizations can unlock this potential. Could you describe some of these?

Lindsay: Let’s talk first about the first two plays and how they work together.

Investing in AI solutions to measure, predict, and optimize complex systems can drive both innovation and efficiency, helping companies focus on the most strategic priorities for business resilience.

For example, Mitiga Solutions, a global leader in climate risk intelligence and a Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund investment leverages AI, high-performance computing, and advanced climate models to predict the impact of physical climate hazards on any asset, anywhere in the world, from now until the end of the century. This helps infrastructure, commercial real estate, insurers, and companies across industries comply with climate disclosure regulations while proactively strengthening their resilience.

 With AI-powered solutions, businesses can swiftly tackle complex challenges across their own supply chains and for their customers. This not only positions companies as leaders in sustainability but can also unlock new market opportunities and enhance their competitive advantage.

It’s crucial to build a strong digital and data infrastructure to maximize AI’s potential—your AI is only as good as the data it relies on. That’s why having high-quality, representative data and the right processing infrastructure is essential. It enables teams to make informed decisions and provides accurate input for AI applications.

For many of our customers and partners, these two plays are closely linked. The foundational work involves bringing all the necessary data together in one place, like in Microsoft Fabric. What’s amazing about Fabric is it lets you reason over both internal and external data, which is incredibly helpful for things like regulatory reporting.

Once your data is set up properly, your team can use solutions such as Microsoft Copilot to ask questions of their data, generate reports, and learn from industry best practices. Copilot streamlines these tasks, reducing manual work and enabling practitioners to focus their time on new strategic initiatives.

Minimize resource use in AI design and operations

Toby: When I talk to organizations looking to adopt AI, customers and partners often want to learn more about what Microsoft is doing to reduce the environmental impact of AI. Could we talk a bit about that?

Lindsay: Absolutely. Let’s talk about play 3 and how that relates to our work at Microsoft.

AI has its own energy and water demands, so it’s crucial to minimize resource use and move toward powering AI systems with carbon-free energy. In addition, since AI infrastructure is often concentrated in specific regions, it is essential to support the local communities where datacenters are located. At Microsoft, we’re innovating across three critical areas to continue to advance the sustainability of cloud and AI services:

1. Optimizing datacenter energy, water, and waste efficiency while protecting ecosystems.
2. Advancing low-carbon materials and creating global markets to promote industry-wide sustainability.
3. Enhancing the energy efficiency of AI and cloud services.

Many of our customers and partners want to know not only what we’re doing, but also what they can do to manage resource use. Our Well-Architected Framework sustainability guidance provides a great starting point, as well as small language models that perform specific tasks using fewer resources than larger models.

Build workforce capacity to use AI for sustainability

Toby: The pace of innovation in this domain is incredible. Is there anything more you’d like to add in terms of how your team helps leaders move their ideas from concept to implementation?

Lindsay: The way forward on this journey is through people working together, and this is an area where we can help customers and partners make progress. Let’s talk about the final play first:

For companies to be able to put AI’s three game-changing capabilities to work, they must have skills to use AI effectively. Microsoft has training programs focused on building AI fluency, supporting nonprofits, businesses, and governments in advancing workforce AI technical skills and promoting safe and responsible AI development.

Microsoft’s AI learning hub can empower customers on their AI transformation journey, and customers can also use Copilot to connect with their data in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric. With these tools, employees can quickly gain insights, understand gaps, and identify what’s needed to move initiatives forward.

Toby: Thank you, Lindsay!

Transform business using generative AI

For business leaders wanting to put these plays in action and guide their organizations through effective AI adoption, we’ve published the 2025 AI Decision Brief: Insights from Microsoft and AI leaders on navigating the generative AI platform shift. This report is packed with perspectives from top Microsoft leaders and insights from AI innovators, along with stories of companies across industries that have transformed their businesses using generative AI.

2025 AI Decision Brief

Advance AI and drive consistent AI value in your org

Get the full report

The post Harnessing AI for resilience, efficiency, and sustainability appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.

It is also a notable year for Microsoft. In addition to celebrating the 50th anniversary of our company’s founding, it is the midpoint of our own sustainability journey. In 2020 we announced our ambitions to be carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030, all while protecting ecosystems. We have made tremendous progress over the past five years, and we are proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’ve also learned lessons along the way, lessons that constantly inform and shape our path toward 2030 and beyond.

The goals that we set in 2020 reflected what we believed we needed to do in order to help push the world toward a net-zero economy. I joined Microsoft on this journey two years ago—becoming our Chief Sustainability Officer in January 2023—and I continue to be impressed by the work of employees across the company in their relentless pursuit of these goals.

In June 2020, we announced our largest power PPA to date at the time—a 500MW PPA with Sol Systems. Today, we are one of the largest carbon-free energy buyers in the world, with a 34-gigawatt (GW) contracted renewable energy portfolio across 24 countries to date. We are bringing more carbon-free electricity onto the grids where we operate, and we continue to advocate for the expansion of clean energy solutions around the world.
A key component of our water positive goal is to replenish more water than we consume across our global operations. We’ve grown our replenishment portfolio to 90 projects in over 40 locations around the world.
On our journey to become zero waste, we’re finding opportunities to keep electronics in circulation. The repairability of our current portfolio of Surface devices has evolved significantly from our first field-repairable product in 2019. This is also true of Xbox, which recently announced how they’re working to expand the number of ways players can get support to repair their consoles and accessories.
We exceeded our land protection goal, with 15,849 acres of protected land and surpassed our initial target of 11,000 acres by more than 40%.
This is only a snapshot of the real progress we’ve made over the last 5 years. We have a longstanding commitment to sustainability, and our experience shows us that the investments and innovations we’ve focused on are good for our company, our customers, the economy, and our planet. Every investment has also been a learning opportunity, a chance to test our assumptions and adjust as needed.

While we are proud of these achievements, we know that our work is far from over, and that the path ahead has gotten harder. The world is not on track to meet critical climate goals and we see many of these challenges reflected in our own journey.

In 2020, Microsoft leaders referred to our sustainability goals as a “moonshot,” and nearly five years later, we have had to acknowledge that the moon has gotten further away. However, the force creating this distance from our goals in the short term is the same one that will help us build a bigger, faster, and more powerful rocket to reach them in the long term: artificial intelligence (AI). This is not hyperbole. Already, we are seeing AI make a positive impact on the planet, and in the coming years, this technology will begin to rapidly accelerate climate solutions at a scale we’ve not yet seen. In November 2023, we introduced our AI and Sustainability Playbook, which highlights five foundational enabling conditions needed to unlock AI’s full transformative potential for accelerating sustainability progress. In January, we shared a report that highlights our progress and the innovations that have advanced each of those five pillars.

Building the AI economy of the future is a top priority for our business, but we are also in the business of sustainability. As CSO, it is my job to ensure that these dual mandates are working together.

To achieve this, we need to run our sustainability initiatives like we run the rest of our business: ensuring that our focus is on the highest-impact interventions that truly move the needle when it comes to planetary impact.

Carbon Neutrality
Microsoft announced that it was carbon neutral in 2012, several years ahead of our ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030. Microsoft’s prior years achieving carbon neutrality were based on a common combination of environmental attributes purchased with funds from our corporate-wide carbon fee and our overall carbon emissions reduction efforts. This is a prime example of where we have learned and adjusted along our journey. While we continue to apply the carbon fee to investments in emissions reductions, we have ceased purchasing non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates. We are refocusing the use of these funds on more long-term, higher-impact investments across carbon reduction, carbon removal, and clean electricity procurement. These interventions are expected to more effectively help us achieve our goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030 and may take us out of carbon-neutral position.

We will also continue to invest in innovative climate solutions through our $1B Climate Innovation Fund (CIF). Since launching the CIF in 2020, Microsoft has committed nearly $800M to solutions ranging from sustainable fuels and low-carbon building materials to carbon dioxide removal, water innovation, and circular economy technologies. We now have a portfolio of 63 investees that we’re helping to scale. Going forward, we will extend this strategy and continue to invest our capital to build new markets and increase the market supply of emerging sustainable technologies to address carbon, water, and waste.

We are proud to continue making decisions that drive positive environmental impact in the market and deliver high-integrity investments. We remain resolute in our commitment to our climate goals and to empowering others with the technology needed to build a more sustainable future.

In my first year with Microsoft, I wrote a piece on LinkedIn: Removing Roadblocks in the Race to Net Zero, where I compared reaching our sustainability goals to training for a marathon, noting that “it will take focus, planning, and perseverance to reach the finish line.” Today—and now two years into my role—I would like to add another comparison, to an African proverb that says the following: “If you want to travel fast, travel alone; if you want to travel far, travel together.”

In 2025, the moon is further away, so we all must travel together and do more if we are going to reach it. We will continue to work in close collaboration with our employees, customers, suppliers, industry peers, partners, and with policymakers to maximize our impact in pursuit of our shared goals.

The post Progress on the road to 2030 appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.

As we gather for Microsoft Ignite 2024, we invite you to explore the latest advancements in AI and discover how these innovations can transform your business. With AI-powered agents, organizations can analyze vast amounts of data, adapt to changing environments, and execute complex processes, bringing efficiency and intelligence to your operations. Whether it’s automating customer service interactions, optimizing supply chain logistics, enhancing personalized shopping experiences, or driving sustainability efforts, the potential applications are vast and impactful.

Join us on this journey to unlock the potential of AI and pave the way for a more intelligent, connected, and sustainable world. Together, let’s embrace the future of innovation and drive exceptional value for our customers.

Innovating with new adapted AI models and agents

Adapted AI models are transforming industries by enabling new applications and driving business outcomes such as increased accuracy, enhanced efficiency, better decision-making, and improved customer experiences. These models are designed to meet specific industry needs and tasks, addressing unique challenges more accurately and effectively. By using customized AI for their needs, organizations can enhance their digital presence, improve customer engagement, and streamline operations. With a focus on trustworthy AI, which includes safety, security, and privacy, our AI solutions adhere to high standards of integrity and responsibility, offering a secure approach to advancing industry capabilities. These adapted AI models enable the creation of custom AI solutions within Azure AI Studio and can also be used to configure agents for specific industry scenarios in Microsoft Copilot Studio scenarios. 

We are collaborating with several partners across multiple industries on these adapted and fine-tuned AI models, which are available through the Azure AI model catalog, empowering organizations to build custom AI solutions to address their most pressing needs. Bayer, for instance, offers the E.L.Y. Crop Protection model to enhance sustainable crop protection in the agriculture sector. Cerence provides the CaLLM™ Edge model for in-vehicle digital assistant technology, while Rockwell Automation’s FT Optix Food & Beverage model supports asset troubleshooting in manufacturing. Saifr introduces models for regulatory compliance in financial institutions, and Siemens Digital Industries Software offers a copilot for NX X software leveraging an industry model to optimize the design process. Sight Machine’s Factory Namespace Manager standardizes factory data for AI readiness, and open-source models from Hugging Face are available for summarization and sentiment analysis of financial data. 

Microsoft also provides AI agents designed for various industry scenarios through Copilot Studio. These agents can be customized to meet the specific needs of different organizations. For example, retailers can use the Store Operations Agent to assist store associates, and manufacturers can utilize the Factory Operations Agent to enhance production efficiency. The new release of Agent Builder (preview) in Copilot Studio enables users to create agents directly in Business Chat and SharePoint by defining the agent’s purpose, configuring its knowledge base, and setting up starter prompts. With a user-friendly design requiring only low-code skills, Agent Builder allows integration of diverse data sources to customize agents with industry-specific knowledge and capabilities, improving their effectiveness in addressing key use cases for each industry. 

To learn more about the new adaptive AI models for Industry that are available in Azure AI model catalogue and directly through our partners, visit Azure AI model catalog.

Financial services

Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services are leading the generative AI revolution in financial services, empowering industry professionals to securely and easily incorporate rich industry data and specialty data sets into their everyday activities while providing enhanced security and compliance at the same time. Microsoft has dedicated itself to generating strong partner momentum across the financial services space, including through creating and offering the tools Microsoft partners need to drive innovation, mutual growth, and success both now and as the capabilities of generative AI continue to evolve. LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group), among others, has already built pioneering new solutions aligned to this initiative.

Built in collaboration with LSEG, Financial Meeting Prep (see the recent announcement using the preview name, Meeting Prep for Financial Services) aims to streamline client meeting preparation for investment banking professionals. Combining LSEG Workspace, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft 365 Copilot, the solution will consolidate important data, introduce organization-specific insights, easily refresh content as new data becomes available, and enhance relationship manager productivity and decision-making. General availability of Financial Meeting Prep is expected by the end of 2024.

Financial Insights Agent in Copilot Studio

Gathering insights from online sources and proprietary financial documents is crucial for making investment decisions, strategizing, and conducting assessments. However, finding the right data can be time-consuming for financial services professionals, and reviewing the vast amounts of relevant information is nearly impossible.

With the Financial Insights Agent, now available in Copilot Studio, financial services professionals can quickly and easily gather information from financial news and regulatory reporting websites. And because this agent comes ready-made and is easily customized agent, you don’t need advanced development skills to get started.

The Financial Insights Agent gives high-quality results and works best when integrated with the financial document analysis skill for agents (preview), available in Azure Marketplace, which makes it possible for users to gain info and insights from financial documents provided by their organization, such as analyst reports and other complex financial documents that are stored in-house—even when the data is found in complex financial tables, graphs, or charts. This skill not only works with the Financial Insights Agent, but it can also be integrated into custom agents. For example, Reflexivity has been integral in helping Microsoft understand challenges in the industry. Within their own platform, they use this skill for certain document flows, helping financial services professionals derive insights from both structured and unstructured data more efficiently so they can make informed decisions faster.

Financial Services landing zones

Microsoft has recently developed and is now ready to introduce a new Financial Services landing zone. Based on the Azure landing zone—a secure, scalable cloud foundation tailored for compliance needs—the Financial Services landing zone is an infrastructure-as-code solution that provides the baseline governance, resilience, security, automation, and prescriptive guidance that Microsoft industry partners and other financial services organizations need in order to comply with the industry’s strict, mission-critical regulations. As the Financial Services landing zone also provides financial services organizations of all kinds a robust and compliant cloud environment, the solution represents a powerful means to accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry is experiencing a dynamic transformation, with opportunities for growth and innovation despite challenges like economic uncertainty and supply chain disruptions. Microsoft and its partners are at the forefront of this evolution, empowering manufacturers with cutting-edge solutions that help enable intelligent factories, resilient supply chains, and enhanced customer experiences.

Manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric

During Hannover Messe 2024, we announced the preview of manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric. This solution integrates operational technology (OT) data, with information technology (IT) data, creating a comprehensive data foundation structured according to the ISA-95 information model.¹ This standardized approach enables manufacturers to break down data silos, enabling cross-domain insights, streamlined processes, and data-driven decision-making. Partner solutions from Sight Machine, Litmus, and Avanade further enhance these capabilities.

Sight Machine Factory Copilot on Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing transforms your manufacturing execution systems (MES) data into the ISA-95 standard for consumption in manufacturing data solutions in Fabric, which can be surfaced through factory agent experiences to help address operational issues on the factory floor.

Litmus Edge Manager enables a robust hybrid edge-to-cloud infrastructure, streamlining real-time machine dashboards and facilitating advanced machine learning. Litmus and the manufacturing data solutions in Fabric unlocks unprecedented efficiency and innovation, seamlessly bridging the gap between edge and cloud.

Learn how to get started with manufacturing data solutions in Microsoft Fabric and Factory Operations Agent.

Factory Operations Agent in Microsoft Azure AI

We’re excited to announce the public preview of the Factory Operations Agent in Azure AI, which empowers manufacturers to develop customized, AI-powered agents for frontline workers. These intelligent assistants leverage natural language processing and retrieval-augmented generation, making complex data analytics accessible for scenarios like root cause analysis, production loss reduction, continuous improvement, and asset maintenance. With the Factory Operations Agent, factory teams can intuitively interact with data, receive timely insights, and resolve issues more efficiently—ultimately enhancing productivity and empowering the workforce to drive operational excellence.

Avanade Manufacturing Copilot, powered by manufacturing data solutions in Fabric, helps customers to overcome OT-IT data accessibility and utilization challenges and leverage AI at-scale to make higher-quality products faster with less waste.

Learn how to get started with Factory Operations Agent in Azure AI (preview).

Factory Safety Agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio

The new Factory Safety Agent in Copilot Studio (preview) is focused on workplace safety. Factory Safety Agent provides organizations with a low code option to quickly develop a customized agent, grounded in occupational health and safety data. Whether using publicly available standards like Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or specific protocols of the organization, this agent can provide critical safety information, insights to factory workers, and streamline critical activities such as safety inspections or incident reporting to reduce risks and ultimately accidents.

Retail

As the retail industry adapts to new customer expectations and competitive pressures, Microsoft and its partners are providing tools for retailers that offer real-time insights, enhance customer engagement, and drive digital innovation.

Retail Data Solutions in Microsoft Fabric

Retail Data Solutions in Microsoft Fabric help retailers unify and standardize their data. This platform enables customers to integrate data from different systems and offers ready-to-use agents to speed up AI transformations. Currently in public preview, it includes four customizable features for retail:

• Retail Industry Data Model: Plan and design data solutions for governance, reporting, business intelligence, and analytics.
• Frequently Bought Together: Use insights to enhance upselling, shelf optimization, and store efficiency.
• Sitecore OrderCloud Connector: Standardize commerce data from Sitecore OrderCloud to gain actionable insights.
• Personalized Shopping Agent: Improve shopping experiences with tailored customer conversations.

Personalized Shopping Agent

The Personalized Shopping Agent can engage in natural language conversations to understand and respond to shoppers’ needs. It provides tailored recommendations based on the shopper’s specific requirements and preferences. Additionally, it can handle specific requests, such as finding matching items or suggesting outfits for specific occasions. The agent leverages Retail Data Solutions, using aggregated product catalogs, and AI orchestration tools to provide accurate and contextually relevant answers.   

Store Operations Agent

The Store Operations Agent revolutionizes how store associates handle daily tasks with its headless architecture that integrates into applications or websites. It offers ready-to-deploy plugins for:

• Product search or inventory search: Real-time access to product details and stock.
• Order details: Tracks order information down to the line level.
• Incident management: Resolves incidents using Copilot and ServiceNow.
• Task management: Integrates directly with tasking apps.
• Omni channel access: Provides natural language access to current prices, promotions, and information.

The agent integrates seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Commerce, and ServiceNow. These integrations can extend to other enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and applications with pre-built connectors and APIs. These features are continually updated, adding more plugins to help partners scale operations.

Partners can also utilize the Store Operations Agent alongside their own solutions to accelerate customer adoption. Accenture Avanade has launched a Clienteling copilot, which has Store Operations Agent embedded and assists store associates in managing daily tasks efficiently. It also offers a natural language query interface for store policies and procedures, enabling informed decision-making for store associates and managers.

Public sector

Microsoft is leading the way in helping government and regulated organizations address their compliance, security, and data sovereignty requirements while adopting modern digital technologies. With initiatives like Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty and generative AI, Microsoft offers comprehensive solutions tailored to diverse regulatory landscapes, enabling organizations to streamline their compliance processes and enhance their digital capabilities.

Citizen Services agent

Available in Copilot Studio, Citizen Services agent allows public sector organizations to create AI-powered agents using their public websites and information. The agent helps citizens navigate government services and information through a Q&A experience, providing answers from configured knowledge bases, such as responses about city plans, road closures, or service applications, offering citizens access to up-to-date information.

Get started with the Citizen Services agent in Copilot Studio.

Regulated Environment Management

Regulated Environment Management (REM) in Azure, currently in private preview, supports cloud adoption as part of Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty. REM simplifies the configuration, deployment and management of regulated environments through landing zones, policy and drift analysis. Starting November 2024, REM will shift to a subscription-level service, offering benefits like data isolation, regional boundaries, and group management of landing zone configurations. Transparency logs and the Landing Zone Account (LZA) simplify managing configurations and provide data residency. REM also includes a REST API for easier integration.

Request access in the REM private preview.  

Sustainability

With growing demands for disclosure requirements under regulatory directives like the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the pursuit of impactful initiatives such as decarbonization, and the increasing need for transparency in corporate sustainability claims, businesses are under pressure to demonstrate genuine commitment to sustainability. To address these challenges, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is introducing Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric and enhanced reporting in Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric

Now generally available, Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric enables customers to unify environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data with organizational data, fostering innovation, process changes, and simplified reporting. With Microsoft Fabric, businesses can create a standardized sustainability data lake for their ESG needs. Features include an extensible ESG data schema, pre-built notebooks for data transformations, data pipelines for various business systems (including Microsoft Sustainability Manager), and built-in dashboards for analyzing ESG topics.

OneLake in Fabric allows businesses to enhance sustainability by building analytical insights with AI and machine learning models and using Copilot agents for autonomous workflows. Learn more about Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric.

Partners like UST Global use Sustainability data solutions in Fabric to develop flexible ESG systems of record that align with sustainability goals. Leveraging Microsoft Fabric, they craft customizable solutions for unique ESG challenges and adapt as requirements evolve.

Sustainability data solutions in Fabric offers tools to manage ESG data complexities, improve data integration and accuracy, provide real-time insights, and support compliance. This platform helps meet regulatory and stakeholder expectations and drives effective sustainability efforts across organizations.

External reporting in Microsoft Sustainability Manager

Also in general availability, the new external reporting capabilities in Microsoft Sustainability Manager (formerly Project ESG Reporting) simplifies external reporting across various standards with AI-powered insights and recommendations, making it easier for organizations to prepare and manage disclosure reports. Users can seamlessly connect, organize, review, and report data according to global standards.

Whether used as a standalone solution through the Power Platform gallery or integrated within Microsoft Sustainability Manager, it supports custom frameworks, iXBRL compatibility through partners, and offers a workflow user interface (UI) for editing and approvals. These new capabilities reduce the complexities of compliance, helping businesses stay on top of their sustainability reporting.

Using Copilot Studio with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Copilot Studio is a key part of the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability toolkit, helping users create customized agents to meet sustainability and compliance goals. As compliance standards change, Copilot Studio uses large language models (LLM) to help organizations adapt quickly. It offers pre-built connectors for easy data integration, reducing the time and effort needed to manage diverse data sources and focus on actionable insights. Current features include the Sustainability Insights Agent for interacting with sustainability reports, with upcoming agents for estimating European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) costs and setting goals. This tool, combined with our network of partners, helps organizations achieve their ESG goals by unifying data intelligence and streamlining sustainability management.

Shaping the future with AI

Join us on this journey to unlock the potential of AI and pave the way for a more intelligent, connected, and sustainable world. Together, let’s embrace the future of innovation and drive exceptional value for our customers. By leveraging the latest advancements in AI, we can transform industries, enhance productivity, and create meaningful experiences for everyone. Whether it’s through automating routine tasks, optimizing operations, or providing personalized services, the possibilities are endless. Let’s work together to harness the power of AI and make a lasting impact on our businesses and communities. 

Watch the Ignite 2024 sessions

Watch Accelerating industry partner growth in the age of AI with Kathleen Mitford and Satish Thomas and Delivering adapted AI models for industries with partners.

Financial Services

• Accelerate AI Innovation with Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 
• Empowering the financial services partner ecosystem with Generative AI

Manufacturing

• Democratize data-driven decision making across factory operations with AI

Retail

• Elevate the retail experience with the Personalized Shopping Agent 
• Empower the retail workforce with the Store Operations Agent 

Public Sector

• Accelerate Cloud Adoption with Software-Defined Sovereignty 
• Collaborating with partners for digital sovereignty in the cloud 
• Deploying AI with Sovereign controls

Sustainability

• Accelerating ESG progress with sustainability data solutions in Fabric 
• Sustainability reduction and calculation compliance simplified with Copilot Studio and Microsoft Sustainability Manager 
• Building solution practices for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability 
• Implementation best practices for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability 

Microsoft Ignite 2024

Experience the latest innovations for AI transformation

Discover more

¹ https://www.isa.org/standards-and-publications/isa-standards/isa-95-standard

The post Unlocking the future: AI and data revolutionize industries at Microsoft Ignite 2024 appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Record, report, and reduce your environmental impacts using the power of data and AI.

Try it today

Tighten your emissions goals with what-if analysis—now generally available

Conducting what-if analysis in Sustainability Manager allows organizations to evaluate their current carbon emission trends against the projected effects of altering variables within their business practices. Put simply, companies can intelligently forecast the long-term effects of altering their practices on their emissions footprint. With this GA release, the what-if analysis capability is enhanced to help businesses advance toward their objectives more quickly.  

Organizations can now extend their forecast horizons longer, based on the amount of historical data incorporated, by utilizing the what-if analysis feature. Typically, the forecast horizon spans about half the duration of the historical data used. An organization with four years of historical data, for example, can expect to see a forecast of up to two years. This allows businesses to create more informed and strategic plans for reducing their carbon footprint. By estimating the long-term effects of different emission reduction strategies, companies can help identify actions to take toward meeting reporting requirements and enhancing their progress toward goals.  

With increased customizability, organizations can select specific fields to manipulate within forecasts, rather than being restricted to the default fields available in earlier versions. Fields can also be layered together to enable the prediction and comparison of different reduction strategies’ outcomes in a single view. Up to three forecasts can be layered to help identify optimal reduction opportunities. 

Figure 1. Customizable what-if analysis allows users to alter variables to deliver more precise insights. 

With customizable what-if analysis, organizations ultimately enable greater precision and flexibility in their sustainability efforts. They can make more informed decisions, tailored to specific needs and goals, and drive more targeted progress toward reporting and long-term sustainability objectives. Moreover, through intelligent forecasting, they can preempt potential issues and sharpen strategic planning to help save time and resources. 

Figure 2. With layered forecasting, organizations can estimate and compare the outcomes of different reduction strategies in a single view. 

Strengthen analysis and decision-making with intelligent insights

Building on the predictive capabilities of what-if analysis, intelligent insights in Microsoft Sustainability Manager further assists decision-making by enabling deep, AI-driven data analysis and actionable insights. The intelligent insights capability, also now generally available, helps organizations analyze complex data patterns and drive meaning from data to make more informed decisions. This feature helps identify data trends and gaps as well as hidden opportunities for efficiency, allowing businesses to optimize costs, form targeted strategies, and make better progress. 

Used with what-if analysis to simulate different scenarios, businesses can assess the potential impact of various decisions, evaluate the outcomes of different strategies before implementation, and understand potential risks and benefits. As a result, businesses can plan more effectively and avoid potential pitfalls. 

Overall, the intelligent insights capability provides businesses with a competitive edge by enabling them to make smarter, more data-driven decisions. By leveraging AI to help analyze complex data patterns, businesses can uncover valuable insights that drive better outcomes and support long-term success. Whether it’s optimizing operations, accelerating sustainability progress, or responding to market expectations, intelligent insights offer a wealth of benefits that can help transform the way businesses operate.

Tackle multiple reporting standards with Project ESG Reporting

Project ESG Reporting (preview) offers a collection of templates, frameworks, and directives that can be populated and reused for future reports, helping organizations streamline the reporting process. These tools are designed to support organizations in their sustainability reporting journeys, making it easier to track progress, identify areas for improvement, and communicate their sustainability efforts effectively. 

New SASB templates (preview) enable drafting responses to Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards across a wide array of industries. Overseen by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), SASB Standards facilitate reporting on industry-related sustainability risks and opportunities over short, medium, or long terms, across 77 industries. Get more information about the templates for SASB and other standards. 

Figure 3. Organizations can streamline the reporting process for SASB and other standards, using Project ESG Reporting (preview). 

Improve greenhouse gas calculations with DEFRA emission factors

Microsoft Sustainability Manager also now includes Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 2023 and 2024 emission factors in the factor library. With DEFRA factors, organizations can calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a range of activities, including energy use, water consumption, waste disposal, recycling, and transport activities.

Learn more about sustainability solutions with Microsoft

Bookmark Microsoft Industry Blogs: Sustainability for the latest updates, including new capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.    

Discover solutions with Microsoft Sustainability Manager.   

Explore the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Community, where you can find answers to questions and connect with peers and experts.   

See what’s new in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.    

The post Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Drive specific reduction and reporting targets with AI appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.

Today, we’re announcing a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation that will enable the restart of an 835 megawatt (MW) nuclear facility in Pennsylvania that was retired in 2019. This will bring a significant supply of net-new, reliable, carbon-free electricity to the PJM power grid, the regional transmission organization covering 13 states, recognizing the importance of nuclear energy and complementing our 34 gigawatt (GW) contracted renewable energy portfolio in 24 countries.

As highlighted by the International Energy Agency, complete grid decarbonization will require a multi-technology approach with a broad range of carbon-free technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, clean hydrogen, sustainable biomass, nuclear, fusion, energy efficiency, and storage, as well as transmission infrastructure to connect these technologies to the grids that need them.¹ Alongside our extensive work on carbon reduction and carbon removal, Microsoft embraces this multi-technology approach as an essential pathway to achieving our goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030.

Carbon reduction

Explore our approach to carbon reduction

Learn more

As we continue to expand our portfolio of solutions to accelerate the energy transition, we collaborate with governments, communities, developers, and energy service providers in many ways. In this blog, I’ll share more about how we approach our work to (1) shape market demand for carbon-free electricity and (2) advance energy policy through advocacy.

Shaping market demand to accelerate the addition of carbon-free electricity

We employ a wide range of contracting mechanisms to meet our goals and secure carbon-free electricity, crafting innovative agreement structures alongside our large portfolio of renewable PPAs. A few examples:

• Our recently announced five-year global agreement with Brookfield Renewable Partners provides a pathway for the development of more than 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity in the United States and Europe, almost eight times larger than the largest corporate PPA ever signed. This agreement provides an incentive for Brookfield to build a large portfolio of new renewable energy projects in the coming years, contributing to the decarbonization of the grid, and matched to the locations where Microsoft consumes electricity.
• In Washington state, our agreement with Powerex matches hourly datacenter demand with direct deliveries of carbon-free hydro, solar, and wind power on a 24-hour basis throughout the year. During the day, when our contracted renewable resources produce more power than needed, Powerex takes the surplus renewable power, conserving water from hydropower reservoirs and effectively storing it like a battery. This energy can then be delivered back to the datacenter in later hours, for example at night when wind and solar sources may be offline.
• As a global company committed to decarbonization on a global level, Microsoft also has worked to develop renewable energy in communities and locations that often are not prioritized. An example of this unique approach was our five-year framework agreement with Pivot Energy to develop up to 500 MW of community-scale solar energy projects across the US between 2025 and 2029. The agreement will enable Pivot to develop approximately 150 US solar projects in roughly 100 communities across 20 states, including Colorado, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, with each solar project including significant community benefits.  

Advancing carbon-free electricity through policy advocacy

Our public policy advocacy relating to the electrical grid is focused on accelerating the transition to clean electricity generation, modernizing and improving grid infrastructure, and encouraging an equitable energy future. A grid mix that includes adding and retaining firm carbon-free energy technologies as well as renewables will be pivotal to providing electricity access across the globe and progressing decarbonization.

In December 2023, we published a policy brief on advanced nuclear and fusion energy that highlights the importance of carbon-free electricity and the role advanced nuclear and fusion energy will have in a decarbonized energy future. As advanced carbon-free energy technologies are developed, each comes with its own set of considerations, benefits, risks, regulatory dynamics, and acceptance. Our policy priorities are focused on advancing research, development, and demonstration projects; enabling safe deployment of technologies; and encouraging an efficient and effective regulatory process for new technologies to be deployed.

Explore Sustainable by design

Discover more about how Microsoft is advancing the sustainability of cloud and AI through our blog series on the topic:

• Sustainable by design: Advancing the sustainability of AI
• Sustainable by design: Transforming datacenter water efficiency
• Sustainable by design: Innovating for energy efficiency in AI, part 1
• Sustainable by design: Innovating for energy efficiency in AI, part 2
• Sustainable by design: Advancing low carbon materials
• Sustainable by design: Next-generation datacenters consume zero water for cooling
• Sustainable by design: Innovating for zero waste

¹The path to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C has narrowed, but clean energy growth is keeping it open, IEA, 2023.

The post Accelerating the addition of carbon-free energy: An update on progress appeared first on Microsoft Sustainability Blog.