Hear what Strategic Technology Partner for COP27, Microsoft, has to say about Decarbonisation: Comment from Sherif Tawfik, CSO, Microsoft Middle East and Africa
“The Middle East and Africa region is at the frontline of the climate crisis and is more vulnerable to enduring extremely high temperatures, desertification, water scarcity, degraded marine and coastal ecosystems, and high levels of air pollution. Globally, nearly 3,500 companies have issued climate pledges, as have most of the region’s governments. This will take innovation and hard work, transparency and accountability. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
“At Microsoft, our sustainability work this year is organized around a clarion call to help the world move from pledges to progress. We have partnered with entities such as Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to enhance carbon measurement and reporting and have established a new Africa Innovation Council to improve climate resilience in Africa using AI solutions. We will also continue to stimulate and accelerate the development of carbon removal technology.”
“Companies must take a rigorous approach to achieving net zero if the Middle East and Africa is to avert the worst effects of the rapidly changing climate. This begins with recording and reporting emissions with better data collection and automation, reducing emissions as much as possible, replacing electricity consumption with renewables, and removing the remaining emissions. Technology is the most transformative resource at our disposal for responding to this challenge. Powerful tools such as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability empower organizations to accelerate sustainability progress and business growth by bringing together a growing set of ESG capabilities.”
“The time for waiting is over and now we need to act. Embarking on a sustainability strategy can be intimidating. At Microsoft we found that the journey to net-zero is not a linear one, but this shouldn’t stop organizations from taking that first step towards a more sustainable future. Our 2021 Environmental Sustainability Report demonstrates this. While we saw a reduction of 17 percent in our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, there was a 23 percent increase in our Scope 3 emissions. Knowing this, we haven’t admitted defeat and are rather more aware of where we can do more.”
“Technology has an important role to play in turning the tide against climate change. Recently at Microsoft Ignite, we saw how Mercedes-Benz had implemented an analytics tool to monitor and reduce its ecological footprint during vehicle production, a crucial milestone toward the company’s Ambition 2039 initiative. It’s through this kind of digitalizing of processes that we can break down data silos and centralize data for better reporting.”
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