Overview Carbon Water Waste Ecosystems Appendix 49 Zero waste (continued) Launch of Circular Centers Community engagement To meet the growing demand for our cloud services, our 100% Our programs enable waste reduction and help datacenter footprint—and the 3 million servers and related eliminate the community concept of waste through hardware that power it on an annual basis—must expand. All cloud packaging will mindful inputs and highest-value use of by-products. But we must do this with our sustainability goals in mind, and be reusable, recyclable, Programs include projects such as research into that is more than just reducing the power they consume. or compostable by 2025. decommissioned datacenter battery reuse for Today, these servers have an average lifespan of five years. distributed energy projects, and training computer To better manage this waste stream, Microsoft is increasing vision models to identify types of waste for recycling. control and innovating to create closed loop models. In 2020, we partnered with The Recycling Partnership In 2020, we announced our first-of-its kind approach to build two recycling units at an existing solid waste to repurpose and reuse servers and network hardware drop-off location in Mecklenburg County, Virginia through new Microsoft Circular Centers, which will be where residential recycling services are currently limited. located on every new major datacenter campus. Using This project will allow residents to recycle plastic, glass, intelligent scheduling via Dynamics 365, these centers aluminum, steel, cardboard, and mixed paper, and will process servers on-site through a variety provide public education for residents and operational of reuse routes working in close collaboration with training for county staff. datacenters, key suppliers, and partners. Already, we are up and running in Amsterdam. We have Repurposing and reusing seen increased availability of server and network parts Extending circularity in datacenters servers and hardware for reuse and producer returns. We reduced downtime to packaging through Microsoft and transportation miles, extended the lifecycles of Given the number of components coming through our Circular Centers. servers in use, and demonstrated savings linked to spares datacenters, in 2020 we launched our new Microsoft and repairs. We are seeing a 70 percent increase in value Cloud Responsible Packaging Goals for 2025. These return for components that we are processing through guide our work on IT asset transportation packaging our new disposition routes. We are also seeing an at our datacenters. Our goals include: increased flexibility and new opportunities for end-of- life processing working with our partners. • All packaging will have a minimum of 50 percent The Circular Centers are an integral part of our design- recycled content. for-sustainability workstreams, providing a responsive • 100 percent of all cloud packaging will be reusable, feedback flow of information, with learnings linked to recyclable, or compostable. reuse, disassembly, reassembly, and recycling shared • Single-use plastics will be eliminated in all IT asset with our design and supply chain teams to inform future packaging in our datacenters. sustainable generations of equipment. We are expanding from our pilot in Amsterdam to our Virginia, • Packaging weight will be reduced by a minimum Sweden, and Dublin sites. The Circular Centers will of 10 percent from a December 2020 baseline. contribute to and increase our reuse of servers and components up to 90 percent by 2025.