Microsoft bets on the eco-friendly office campus

The Seattle area has an average annual rainfall of 35 inches, and Microsoft is planning to use as much of that as it can.

Microsoft’s sustainability goals are lofty. It’s aiming to be carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 wants to have reversed all of the carbon it’s emitted directly since its 1975 founding. The company also expects to be water positive by 2030, meaning it will replenish more water than it uses.

Some of those solutions are complex in practice, but simple in theory. One of those solutions is using rainwater for bathroom sinks and low-flow toilets.

“You’re speaking to someone whose passion is water conservation,” says Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft chief sustainability officer, during a tour of the company’s expanded campus. “If the water is literally falling from the sky, why not use it?”

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2023/10/12/microsoft-sustainable-campus.html