Microsoft's Circular Strategy Supports Zero Waste Goals
Microsoft has achieved a 90.9% reuse and recycling rate for servers and components in 2024, exceeding its target of 90% a full year ahead of schedule.
The achievement forms part of the company's broader sustainability strategy, which includes becoming zero-waste by 2030. As part of this, it has implemented a Circular Center strategy focused on processing decommissioned data centre hardware to maximise reuse and recover components.
Since launching its first facility in Amsterdam in 2020, Microsoft has expanded to sites across the US, Ireland and Singapore, with new centres planned for Cardiff, Wales, as well as New South Wales, Australia and San Antonio, Texas.
“Zero waste by 2030 is a cornerstone of our sustainability strategy, along with becoming carbon negative, water positive and protecting more land than we use,” says Rani Borkar, Corporate Vice President of Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure at Microsoft.
“This recent milestone, driven by a culture of innovation and cross-functional collaboration, reflects the growing momentum to integrate zero waste and circularity practices across the technology industry.”
Expanding its Circular Centers programme
Microsoft reports that it successfully reused more than 3.2 million components through internal and external channels in 2024, representing a 30% increase in value recovery through its Circular Center programme.
The centres sort, test and channel servers and components for internal reuse, resale, or donation to skills training academies. These facilities ensure hardware receives a second life where possible, while creating economic opportunities in local communities.
The planned Cardiff Circular Center in Wales aims to contribute to the UK's green economy by partnering with local recyclers, logistics providers and training organisations, creating jobs and supporting regional skills development.
“Preventing waste remains the core of our zero-waste strategy,” Rani adds. “In addition, we're continuing to invest in expanding markets for circular solutions and collaborating with local organisations to support circularity in the communities where we operate and work.”
A key initiative within the Circular Centers involves recovering rare earth elements and precious metals from end-of-life hard disk drives.
Microsoft has collaborated with recycling partners Western Digital, Critical Materials Recycling and PedalPoint Recycling to process approximately 50,000 pounds of obsolete drives.
- Piloting the sustainable extraction of rare earth minerals from hard disk drives at scale
- Continuing to expand its Circular Centers around the world
- Co-creating recyclable packaging solutions for transporting data centre hardware.
The company utilises an acid-free process that achieves a 90% yield in recovering materials including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, gold and copper. These materials are essential for electronics manufacturing and clean energy applications.
This approach reduces the need for new mining while cutting emissions by 95% compared to traditional extraction methods. By maintaining domestic processing, Microsoft reports minimising transportation emissions and strengthening local supply chain resilience for materials that typically require imports.
Advancing sustainable progress
Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft's Chief Sustainability Officer, says: “This milestone reflects our dedication and is just one piece of reaching our goal of zero waste by 2030.
“What stands out most to me about this achievement is the creativity and innovation that made this possible. Through material recovery — extracting valuable components from discarded products and putting them to work in new ways, like memory chips and motherboards — we're not just reducing waste, we're conserving resources and lowering emissions.”
She adds: “Scaling these practices across all our operations is our next step, and I'm inspired by the support of our many partners as we continue transforming our approach to waste management.”
The timing of these initiatives aligns with increasing market pressure, as demand for rare earth metals grows at 9% annually with the global market projected to reach US$16.3bn by 2030.
It also comes in the wake of Microsoft stepping back from globally developing data centres, which was announced earlier this month. The company remains committed to pursuing ongoing developments, but has reportedly pulled back from new leases.
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