Microsoft Management Method: Fire Humans, Fight Pollution
August 7, 2025
How Microsoft Plans to Bury its AI-Generated Waste
Here is how one big tech firm is addressing the AI sustainability quandary. Windows Central reports, “Microsoft Will Bury 4.9 Tons of ‘Manure’ in a Secretive Deal—All to Offset its AI Energy Demands that Drive Emissions Up by 168%.” We suppose this is what happens when you lay off employees and use the money for something useful. Unlike Copilot.
Writer Kevin Okemwa begins by summarizing Microsoft’s current approach to AI. Windows and Office users may be familiar with the firm’s push to wedge its AI products into every corner of the environment, whether we like it or not. Then there is the feud with former best bud OpenAI, a factor that has Microsoft eyeing a separate path. But whatever the future holds, the company must reckon with one pressing concern. Okemwa writes:
“While it has made significant headway in the AI space, the sophisticated technology also presents critical issues, including substantial carbon emissions that could potentially harm the environment and society if adequate measures aren’t in place to mitigate them. To further bolster its sustainability efforts, Microsoft recently signed a deal with Vaulted Deep (via Tom’s Hardware). It’s a dual waste management solution designed to help remove carbon from the atmosphere in a bid to protect nearby towns from contamination. Microsoft’s new deal with the waste management solution firm will help remove approximately 4.9 million metric tons of waste from manure, sewage, and agricultural byproducts for injection deep underground for the next 12 years. The firm’s carbon emission removal technique is quite unique compared to other rivals in the industry, collecting organic waste which is combined into a thick slurry and injected about 5,000 feet underground into salt caverns.”
Blech. But the process does keep the waste from being dumped aboveground, where it could release CO2 into the environment. How much will this cost? We learn:
“While it is still unclear how much this deal will cost Microsoft, Vaulted Deep currently charges $350 per ton for its carbon removal services. Simple math suggests that the deal might be worth approximately $1.7 billion.”
That is a hefty price tag. And this is not the only such deal Microsoft has made: We are told it signed a contract with AtmosClear in April to remove almost seven million metric tons of carbon emissions. The company positions such deals as evidence of its good stewardship of the planet. But we wonder—is it just an effort to keep itself from being buried in its own (literal and figurative) manure?
Cynthia Murrell, August 7, 2025
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