I loved my job at Microsoft, but I had to resign on principle. Here’s why

In Microsoft’s own words about climate change, “those of us who can afford to move faster and go further should.” So why is Microsoft going backwards?

No matter how we vote, what generation we belong to, or what part of the world we live in, many of us have stifled this summer. In one week in June, the world broke 1,400 temperature records – with 1,300 people dying in the Hajj heat wave alone. That should remind us of our shared reality: climate issues are among our most pressing global challenges.

I’m a 32-year-old Seattle-based mountaineer and climate activist who resigned earlier this year from Microsoft, a company hailed by one media outlet as the best ESG company of 2023 Now, I’m co-leading a campaign to advocate for effective policies, inform standards, and build a cross-sector coalition to drive change. Before you dismiss me as an idealistic tech worker out of touch with our oil-dependent economy, I want you to hear the back story.

Leaving Microsoft – over principles

I painfully left a job I loved leading several global sustainability programs, primarily because, after years of internally organizing to make changes, I could no longer reconcile the strong public position of environmental sustainability of Microsoft with assistance to the oil and gas industry – a partnership that has been dramatic. increase in global emissions. I realized that internal pressure alone will not change incentives; the public and shareholders needed to know what was going on.

Corporations play a role in many of the biggest challenges of our time, and many have made strong commitments to labor and human rights, conflict minerals or privacy. Over nearly a decade at Microsoft, the challenge I have dedicated my career to has been environmental sustainability. We were in good company, with Microsoft’s commendable sustainability commitments supported by thousands of employees and world-class programs.

Microsoft is extremely open about the ethics of technology and sustainability. Chairman Brad Smith has strongly emphasized the need to control whether the technology is used “for good or ill” and has made strong statements about Microsoft’s role in climate change. Similarly, CEO Satya Nadella told shareholders: “As we pursue our mission, we also recognize our enormous responsibility to ensure that the technology we build benefits everyone on the planet, including the planet itself “.

I’m proud that the group of employees I co-founded played a role in strengthening Microsoft’s environmental commitments. But even as the tech giant proclaims the urgency to act on climate for “a shared future,” its core business activities directly contribute to the climate crisis.

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The leader in “Responsible AI” acts irresponsibly

As an explosive new article in the Atlantic points out, in truth, Microsoft’s advanced technology is enabling a substantial increase in global emissions. The company dominates as the largest cloud provider of advanced technology (eg AI) to the fossil fuel industry, surpassing all other providers combined. Its digital technology is contributing to the staggering profits of the fossil fuel industry, with companies like Chevron last year producing “more oil and natural gas than any year in the company’s history.”

Between 2018-19, Microsoft made explicit goals including “expanding production” with Exxon, “generating new exploration opportunities” with Chevron and accelerating “extracted and refined” hydrocarbons with BP. In a case study for Microsoft customers, Staale Gjervik, president of ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy, revealed: “Over the next decade, we plan to drill thousands of new wells and build dozens of new facilities. It’s challenging to keep up with this pace, but with (Microsoft) Azure, we have the digital technology to support our growth…”

In 2020, following Microsoft’s major carbon announcements and analysis from Greenpeace’s “Oil in the Cloud” report, the company changed its public communications tone, largely omitting such references from its public materials. However, within the company, the focus on increased extraction flourished. Over the past four years, fossil fuel companies have become among the top consumers of Microsoft’s cloud and AI services — and now, generative AI has supercharged the issue.

Analyst reports suggest that advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence or machine learning (ML) – have the potential to increase the yield of fossil fuels by 15%, contributing to the renaissance of oil and potentially delaying the global transition to renewable energy. The real-world impact is staggering: Just one such agreement between Microsoft and ExxonMobil could generate emissions that exceed Microsoft’s annual 2020 carbon-cutting commitments by more than 600 percent. I’ve seen dozens of such offers during my time at Microsoft.

Internally, the discussions highlighted the most significant application of generative AI for the oil and gas industry: optimizing exploration activities. Artificial intelligence has been hailed as a “game changer” and key to the fossil fuel industry continuing to be competitive.

Microsoft makes billions of dollars helping fossil fuel companies accelerate all phases of oil and gas production. This makes their claims of facilitating the transition to a decarbonized economy and establishing AI handrails to a “nature-positive future” seem to me misleading to shareholders, employees and customers who trust and invest in Microsoft because of its reputation strong sustainability. While Microsoft’s public statements and reports highlight the beneficial applications of artificial intelligence for sustainability, they crucially omit the fact that a substantial part of Microsoft’s business is providing technology to fossil fuel companies to increase production.

Even if AI reduces emissions per barrel, its role in increasing global production leads to a net increase in global emissions. Increased efficiency translates into more drilling, which undermines the transition to renewables because the additional fossil fuels brought to market far outweigh any modest emission reductions related to extraction.

Microsoft’s dual approach—publicly promoting sustainability while privately supporting fossil fuel expansion—creates a misleading narrative that may obscure the true environmental impact of their business practices.

What needs to be changed

To be clear: While at Microsoft, my colleagues and I never advocated for the company to sever its ties to the fossil fuel industry; I understand that we still operate in a world dependent on oil. But I argued that Microsoft needed to align its AI policies with broader global climate goals. The company had to work to change the system, not capitulate to it.

Microsoft and other AI companies can do this by ensuring they align their work in a way that supports climate policies. They can conduct audits of their impacts, disclose the climate risks posed by the application of their technologies, and actively shift revenues to renewable energy. Most importantly, doing these things and being transparent about the progress they’re making—and the challenges they’re facing—will encourage competitors to follow suit.

Relying on fossil fuel companies to lead the clean energy transition is risky because their interests remain fundamentally tied to high-carbon activities. We can leverage their expertise without supporting their entire business, while public investment and green innovators drive the real shift to sustainable infrastructure.

Microsoft’s influence can reshape market dynamics and set an industry precedent, similar to its decisions on facial recognition and Google’s moratorium on personalized AI for the oil and gas sector. As Microsoft has stated, “If the world is to achieve net zero goals by 2050, companies must leverage their entire ecosystem and all their positions of influence.” But this will only happen if they are transparent with the public about the progress they are making.

We presented these carefully considered recommendations to Microsoft’s top management, who enthusiastically agreed with us, but failed to see implementation through.

Microsoft has the ability to do better than broken promises to employees and energy principles – their response to our internal pressure – that fail to address the underlying issues. Microsoft and the tech industry in general must take responsibility for the emissions generated by their technology and lead to a truly sustainable future for all.

(Microsoft had no comment when contacted by wealth.)

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