Melanie Nakagawa

Melanie Nakagawa has built her career around championing sustainability: from working as an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, to advising Secretary John Kerry on climate change as a foreign policy priority, to helping the U.S. rejoin the Paris Agreement. Now, as chief sustainability officer at Microsoft, a role she took up in January 2023, she oversees Microsoft’s clean-­energy expansion. In May, the company inked an estimated $10 billion deal to help develop 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable-­energy capacity around the world—enough to power 1.8 million homes. With that price tag, it’s estimated to be the world’s largest such corporate commitment to clean-­energy expansion.

The company is also using more energy. Its AI pivot drove Microsoft’s annual emissions to rise 30% since 2020. To that end, Nakagawa is helping deepen Microsoft’s effort to address the energy and water use of data centers, supporting the growth of lower-carbon materials (think steel and concrete) for building data centers, and improving the energy efficiency of AI and cloud services themselves. And in a further push to cut the company’s emissions, Nakagawa announced in May that it would be asking its “high-­volume suppliers” to use 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030.

What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year, and why?

As someone who drives an electric vehicle, I have become more aware of when to charge it to optimize for the availability of clean energy. This small habit is one that I am beginning to expand into more parts of my life—specifically, becoming more energy aware in my activities. I have been learning about energy aware features for my laptop and phone charging, and now looking into how to power my home with more clean energy. I believe that the combination of awareness, and the accessibility of tools, empowers individuals to see themselves as decision-makers and play an important role in addressing climate change.  

What is a climate solution (other than your own) that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?

Today, concrete and steel are the two most emissive industrial sectors, accounting for over 10% of global emissions. Demand for concrete and steel are expected to grow between 20%-30% by 2050. In order to keep up with demand, and decarbonize these critical infrastructure industries, , global supply of green steel alone will need to grow 38 times by 2030. To help accelerate the global development of climate solutions that do not yet exist and deploy the capital needed to help build them, such as in the low carbon materials sector, in 2020, Microsoft launched the Climate Innovation Fund with a $1 billion commitment. Since then, Microsoft has deployed over $760 million over the last four years into a global portfolio of more than 50 investments, including companies working on materials, but there’s more work to do. Through this work we are seeing exciting new technologies and solutions emerge, but still not enough funding being dedicated to this sector.

If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next U.N. climate conference, what would you say?

Achieving global climate goals requires a solid foundation of clean energy infrastructure—the world must shift to carbon-free energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear before 2050. Global policy changes and voluntary commitments are working to drive demand, and we need the market supply to deliver on the clean energy transition.  

At the same time, we must scale our existing progress. We believe investments in clean energy infrastructure, and new technologies like generative AI, can accelerate this progress. Countries with the cleanest grids will have a competitive edge for 2030 and beyond, attracting investment from companies like Microsoft. We encourage governments to adopt firm carbon and electricity policies, including carbon reporting, multi-sector carbon reduction policies, grid decarbonization, carbon removal, flexible grid, transmission planning, clean energy equity, and workforce training for jobs in the clean energy economy.