Microsoft just hit a major milestone in its ‘zero waste’ strategy

Microsoft says it’s outstripping its zero waste targets, recording a 90.9% reuse and recycling rate for servers and components in 2024.

This puts the company beyond its 2025 target of 90%, a year ahead of schedule.

Microsoft is focusing on three particular areas. It’s piloting the sustainable extraction of rare earth minerals from hard disk drives at scale, continuing to expand its Circular Centers around the world, and finding recyclable packaging solutions for its data center hardware.

“As we build on progress over the past five years, we’re excited to continue accelerating circularity practices across our business. Preventing waste remains the core of our zero-waste strategy,” said Rani Borkar, corporate vice president, Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure.

“In addition, we’re continuing to invest in expanding markets for circular solutions and collaborating with local organizations to support circularity in the communities where we operate and work.”

In terms of other recycling, the company said it successfully reused more than 3.2 million components through internal and external channels in 2024.

It has Circular Centers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as well as five in the US and facilities in Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore.

It’s planning new facilities in Cardiff, Wales; New South Wales, Australia; and San Antonio, Texas.

The new Cardiff Circular Center will help extend the life of data center hardware through reuse and component recovery, support regional job creation and training academies for data center technicians, and enable more sustainable IT infrastructure for customers across the UK and Europe.

Microsoft said its work on packaging has also been paying off. It started with data center hardware and components where, for example, the packaging for server racks might include several layers of wood, glue, and foam.

Over the past 18 months, the tech giant has been working with suppliers, logistics service providers, and recyclers to separate these layers, meaning the materials can be recycled locally.

This has seen packaging from more than 30,000 server racks processed, diverting more than 2,500 metric tons of waste from landfills. The company is now looking at expanding the program to other types of packaging, such as those used for cables, spares, and network components.