Microsoft bets on algae to mitigate its growing carbon footprint

Like all of its peers in the tech industry, Microsoft has a carbon pollution problem.

The software giant's emissions are on the rise, in spite of a pledge from the company to be carbon negative by 2030. This ticking clock explains Microsoft's latest deal to address its environmental toll: It's turning to Running Tide to offset some of its emissions via the ocean.

Running Tide, which also works with Stripe and Shopify, aims to use this money to lock away massive quantities of carbon dioxide. Running Tide has said it will do this through efforts such as growing a whole lot of kelp on biodegradable buoys, intending for the algae to eventually sink to the ocean floor. The startup has a white paper on its work, but if you're looking for just a tad more detail, here is what business development head Jordan Breighner told TechCrunch today:

"We combine wood and alkaline minerals to form a small carbon buoy that we can seed with algae seed and deploy deep into the open ocean," said Breighner. "The buoy floats, the alkaline minerals dissolve, reducing ocean acidification and removing carbon through a process called ocean alkalinity enhancement. The algae grows rapidly, absorbing CO₂. After less than three months the buoy and the algae and the embodied fast carbon sink to the bottom of the ocean, and if they sink below 1,000 meters the carbon is gone for roughly 1,000 years."