Microsoft reduces its purchases of carbon credits by 80%

This is the first decline in three years in this market, while investments in AI increased the group's emissions by 25% last year.

The figure comes from a BloombergNEF report published on August 13: Microsoft has bought about 80% fewer carbon removal credits since the beginning of the year compared to the same period last year. This is the group's first decline in three years in a market in which it had become, by far, the world's largest buyer.

The timing raises questions. Investments in artificial intelligence have increased the company's emissions by 25% over the last financial year, and spending is not slowing down: $41 billion committed in the April-June 2026 quarter alone, mostly earmarked for AI, for an annual infrastructure envelope expected to be around $175 billion.

Microsoft assures that this decline does not reflect any reduction in ambition on its decarbonization objectives. The fact remains that the company had presented itself for years as the customer that made a nascent sector viable — that of sustainable CO₂ withdrawal — and that its partial withdrawal, even temporarily, deprives this market of its main demand signal at the precise moment when the footprint of data centers is increasing.