Microsoft Azure: Alibaba strives to keep up with Microsoft, Amazon and Google with carbon counting

In an effort to keep up with the likes of tech rivals like Microsoft, Google and Amazon, Alibaba has announced that it is launching Energy Expert, a so-called 'sustainability platform' which will facilitate the organization's measuring, analyzing and managing of carbon emissions. This global launch of the product reportedly aligns with the company's carbon neutrality pledge, which it announced in 2020. 

The platform has already been operating in China since February this year, and according to the company, it's seen more than 2,000 customers sign up. Through the platform, customers will be able to identify where their carbon emissions are derived and identify the full life cycle of their products, based on the PAS 2060 and ISO 14064 standards on carbon neutrality. So far, the company claims that the platform has delivered energy savings of over 2 million kilowatt-hours per day, or a reduction of 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. 

The Energy Expert platform also makes recommendations to clients around how to balance business growth and environmental impacts, whether that's, for example, increasing the use of clean energy, or finding ways of optimizing an organization's supply chain to reduce Scope 3 emissions.