Microsoft Signs Record 45 Million Tonne Carbon Removal Agreements in 2025

Microsoft has revealed that it signed agreements to remove a record 45 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025, doubling its contracted volume from 2024 and increasing ninefold compared to 2023. The agreements span 21 companies and encompass both nature-based and engineered carbon removal solutions across multiple geographies.

Microsoft's carbon removal program is central to the company's commitment to become carbon negative by 2030 — removing more carbon than it emits — and to offset all historical emissions by 2050. The tech giant takes a portfolio approach, contracting nature-based and engineered removal solutions it considers as necessary to catalyze market development. The 45 million tonnes contracted in 2025 is equivalent to removing nearly 10 million internal combustion engine cars from the road for a year. Microsoft conducts extensive proprietary due diligence on carbon removal project developers before signing contracts, often investing before projects are listed on carbon registries.

Microsoft's scale and due diligence infrastructure make it the world's largest corporate purchaser of carbon removal credits by a wide margin. The company's public Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal require suppliers to submit comprehensive documentation covering strategies, methodologies, and validation. By securing forward demand commitments, Microsoft enables developers to raise financing, hire staff, and build projects — functioning as an anchor buyer that helps activate broader market participation. The nine-fold increase since 2023 illustrates how rapidly the voluntary carbon removal market is scaling.

Despite the record 2025 volume, Microsoft acknowledged the substantial gap between current market capacity and the seven to nine billion tonnes of annual carbon dioxide removal that experts say the world will need by 2050. The company is actively working to help scale the broader market, including by supporting early-stage projects and publishing its evaluation criteria to build buyer confidence. For Indian carbon removal project developers — particularly in forestry, biochar, and enhanced weathering — Microsoft's active procurement pipeline represents a potential long-term demand anchor as domestic CDR capacity develops.

Key figure — 45 million metric tonnes contracted in 2025