Microsoft reports 25.1% emissions rise in fiscal 2025: cloud buildout drives jump

Microsoft’s fiscal 2025 sustainability report shows a sharp rise in the company’s greenhouse gas emissions. They climbed 25.1% in fiscal 2025, to 20.3 million metric tons, up from 16.2 million the year before.

Microsoft ties most of that increase to the fast expansion and day-to-day running of new cloud and high-performance computing facilities. The company says that strain may stick around for years, even while it puts more money into cleaner energy and efficiency.

That leaves Microsoft with a steeper path to its 2030 carbon-negative target. By the company’s own figures, Scope 2 emissions from purchased electricity jumped from 1.6% of the total in fiscal 2024 to 13.3% in fiscal 2025. Scope 3 emissions also stayed elevated, driven by construction materials, server manufacturing, transportation, and other supplier activity tied to new data centers. Microsoft also says the year-over-year shift reflects a change in accounting: it stopped buying short-term unbundled renewable energy certificates, which had made fiscal 2024 look cleaner than the company’s underlying footprint really was.

For anyone tracking Microsoft’s climate promises, this report matters. Microsoft says that even with an electricity mix that was mostly renewable, its diesel and crude oil use rose 51%. Natural gas fell 6.5%, propane, LPG, and jet fuel dropped 10%, and gasoline was down 16%. Out of 37.5 million MWh used, 422,000 were non-renewable. Microsoft adds that its mitigation efforts kept emissions from reaching roughly 34 million metric tons.

The full report is on Microsoft’s sustainability site. It sits alongside similar numbers from Amazon, up 16%, and Google, which also reported double-digit growth.

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