Microsoft’s plan to be carbon negative by 2030 ‘is not greenwash,’ Jim Cramer says

Microsoft is on a mission to become carbon negative in the next decade and CNBC’s Jim Cramer thinks the ambitious plan has some teeth to it.

“I think they can do it because, remember, they are a powerful force — maybe the most powerful, especially when it comes to data centers, of almost any company on Earth,” he said in a Thursday appearance on “Fast Money Halftime Report.” “So I think they can make an impact. I think this is real. This is not greenwash.”

Earlier, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the company’s goal to not only curb its carbon footprint but to extract more carbon than it emits by 2030. The next goal for the world’s largest software company is by 2050 to remove as much carbon from the atmosphere that the corporation has produced in its 45-year history.

From a stage at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Nadella said corporations must set their sights on developing business plans to benefit both people and the planet they inhabit. It’s the latest company to devise a proposal with climate change in mind. Microsoft’s plan includes a $1 billion “Climate Innovation Fund” that would be invested over four years in carbon removal technology.

The effort “will require technology by 2030 that doesn’t fully exist today,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said.

Amazon is another tech titan that has revealed a plan to be “net zero carbon” by 2040, which includes buying 100,000 electric delivery vans. The online retailer’s program, however, does not go as far as that of Microsoft, whose carbon footprint is less than Amazon’s.

Cramer, who will be interviewing Nadella on “Mad Money” Thursday evening, said the chief executive has decided “these are the kinds of things we have to do in order to be a real and a good company, which is you’ve got to make profit.”

“Make profit along the way of trying to make society better,” Cramer said. “It’s interesting. This is not a Milton Friedman story. This is a company that is uniquely trying to, I would say, evolve it’s stripes.”

Microsoft shares were up 1.5% late afternoon Thursday. The stock traded above $165, setting a new all-time high.

— Reuters contributed to this report.

Programming Note: For more on Microsoft, watch CEO Satya Nadella’s interview on “Mad Money” tonight at 6 p.m. ET.

Disclosure: Cramer’s charitalbe trust owns shares of Microsoft and Amazon.

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