Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has announced that the first investment of its $1 billion U.S. climate fund will be made in venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners.
The software maker has joined with Nike Inc. (NYSE:NKE), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ:SBUX), Unilever NV and Danone SA in a new consortium devoted to reducing carbon emissions, bringing together the efforts of some of the biggest global companies to take action on climate change.
Microsoft’s $50-million U.S. investment will bolster Energy Impact Partners backing of new technologies for greener energy and transportation systems. New York-based Energy Impact Partners is a utility-company backed fund with $1.2 billion U.S. in assets under management. The venture capital company has invested in companies that make software for improving energy networks and in methane-capture technology.
Microsoft announced in January that it plans to be carbon negative — removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits — by 2030, and the software maker allocated $1 billion U.S. to a climate-innovation fund to invest in ways to reduce and remove carbon emissions. By 2050, the company plans to remove the equivalent of all of its emissions since Microsoft’s founding in 1975.
