Microsoft is big on carbon offsets, and not just in the U.S.

It’s become more popular over the years for business, particularly big tech companies that operate huge data centers and work campuses, to purchase carbon offsets to achieve carbon neutrality and help limit the environmental effects of their operations. These credits, in part, help Google ensure that search results, Gmail inboxes and YouTube videos are delivered to users without leaving a carbon footprint.

Microsoft has not only pledged to buy credits, it’s funding the creation of offsets through a novel internal carbon fee — a tax, of sorts — that’s charged to the software company’s business groups. Those fees are funding 15 carbon offset programs across the globe, writes Robert Bernard, Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist in blog post. These include “projects in India, Peru, Guatemala, Mongolia, China, Brazil, Kenya, Cambodia, Turkey and the United States.”

In China, Microsoft invested in the Chifeng Wind Power renewable energy project. Bernard explains:

The 50 MW wind farm generates approximately 130,000 MWh of clean renewable electricity annually and over the course of its lifetime will save over 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. We’ve purchased voluntary carbon credits from the wind farm that correspond to the generation 125,000 MWh of clean, renewable electricity for China’s Northeast Power Grid.

In Brazil, the funds are helping preserve rain forests and in Mongolia, they’re reducing the cost and environmental impact of heating poor households in “Ulan Bator, the world’s coldest capital.”

Check out the Microsoft Green Blog to read more about the innovative program.

Image credit: Microsoft