Microsoft has achieved a milestone on its path to zero waste, attaining a 90.9% reuse and recycling rate for servers and components in 2024, surpassing its own 2025 target ahead of schedule. This accomplishment forms a key element of Microsoft’s broader sustainability ambitions, which also include becoming carbon negative, water positive, and protecting more land than is used. The company credits this progress to a combination of inventive thinking and collaborative efforts across departments, reflecting an increasing industry-wide focus on circularity and waste minimisation.

A central aspect of Microsoft’s progress has been the transformation of its cloud supply chain towards greater sustainability. In partnership with organisations such as Western Digital, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling, Microsoft has demonstrated how approximately 50,000 pounds of decommissioned hard disk drives and other materials can be reclaimed, extracting critical elements such as neodymium, gold, and copper. This initiative, managed largely within the United States to reduce emissions from transport, has also addressed longstanding technical challenges in recycling rare earth elements, using an innovative, acid-free process that achieves a 90% material recovery rate and slashes emissions by 95% compared to conventional mining.

Microsoft’s Circular Centers, now operating globally in locations including Amsterdam, the United States, Dublin, and Singapore, have become essential to extending the lifecycle of datacentre equipment. These facilities manage the redistribution and reuse of decommissioned hardware, whether internally, through electronic supply chains, or by supporting educational programmes for datacentre technicians. In 2024 alone, Microsoft has reused more than 3.2 million components, with its Circular Center programme achieving a notable increase in value recovery. Plans are underway to expand these centres to new locations, further strengthening the company’s capacity to reduce waste and promote sustainability across its operations.

The company has also turned its attention to the packaging that accompanies datacentre hardware, a frequently overlooked source of waste. By collaborating with suppliers and logistics partners, Microsoft has redesigned the recycling process for packaging materials, making them more easily recyclable at a local level. This effort has already diverted over 2,500 metric tonnes of waste from landfills by recycling packaging from more than 30,000 server racks. Microsoft is now exploring similar solutions for other types of packaging, including those used for cables and network components, as well as testing reusable packaging alternatives to replace difficult-to-recycle materials, further underscoring its commitment to a circular, resilient supply chain.