Following this week's UN Climate Action Summit, Microsoft has announced that through its Xbox, it has joined the newly-formed UN Environment Playing For The Planet Alliance which consists of 21 leading video game companies who have pledged to remove 30 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2030 and to bring green programming to their combined audiences of nearly one billion gamers.
Microsoft is in fact launching a pilot program to make 825,000 consoles that are carbon neutral as part of a pilot program. These will be the first game consoles in history to have no carbon impact on the earth. Additionally, Microsoft is releasing a "Built the Better World" program in Minecraft to help people learn more about what they can do to help the cause.
Additionally, "millions" of trees will be planted, while game companies will enact practices to do better in the areas of "energy management, packaging, and device recycling."
Marcus Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer of Microsoft says "This UN Climate Action Summit comes at a pivotal moment in time and I'm encouraged by the passion, the participation and new corporate announcements made. The road ahead will be challenging, and progress will certainly require everyone to do more but at Microsoft, we are committed to doing our part. Microsoft sees a responsibility and opportunity as a leading cloud and AI provider to play a major role in deploying solutions, applying capital and market power and reducing our sizable environmental footprint."
Inger Andersen United Nations Environment Program executive director said "The video games industry has the ability to engage, inspire and captivate the imaginations of billions of people across the world. This makes them a hugely important partner in addressing the climate emergency. We are encouraged by the commitment of these gaming companies, which shows recognition that we all must play our role in the global effort to lower carbon emissions and effect real change towards sustainability."
Microsoft's business operations have been carbon neutral since 2012, so the new effort on a carbon neutral Xbox is an extension of that program.