Caught up today with Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s smartie-pants green dude, who elaborated on CEO Steve Ballmer’s TOP-SECRET memo to his 90K employees laying out the company’s ambitions on energy and climate change. The memo contains juicy nuggets like: “Our goal is to reduce our carbon emissions per unit of revenue by at least 30 percent compared with 2007 levels by 2012.” (Kinda hard to unpack what that means, I know.)
Microsoft has been criticized by some as behind the times on green, compared to, say, a Google, but Bernard, who has been on the job about a year and a half, says his work has buy-in from head honchos and the company is in it for the long haul. Microsoft’s sustainabilty focus is three-pronged: using IT to improve energy efficiency; providing the technological backbone and savvy for scientific breakthroughs; and reducing its own environmental impact (e.g., see the attractive quote above).
Question: What do Gristers think are the most effective ways for Microsoft to pitch in on the climate crisis?
