At the start of 2020, Microsoft Advertising set a goal: with our partners, clients, and employees, we wanted to contribute to a greener future and plant 250,000 trees throughout the year.
2020 was a tough one. Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, many of us turned to the outdoors and were reminded just how beautiful and important mother nature is. Yet, last year was no different in that hurricanes and wildfires continued to ravage pockets of the globe. It became evident that our vision of a greener future was more important than ever.
It took a global village
Thanks to the amazing support from our clients, partners, and employees from all corners of the planet, we are pleased to share that a total of
279,765 trees were planted! Here are some of the ways we achieved our goal:
- Over 1,000 partners, such as Visiture and Impression, contributed to the planting of 105,000 trees by participating in our biannual Microsoft Advertising Get to Green contest.
- We planted 20,000 trees on behalf of our global partners who joined us for Microsoft Advertising Elevate, and 10,000 trees to celebrate winners of our Regional Partner Awards, our annual award ceremony that recognizes the great work of our Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and Asia and Pacific (APAC), Elite and Select Partners.
- Instead of receiving swag, 31,500 trees were planted on behalf of our attendees who tuned in to our educational experiences, such as the Microsoft Advertising Virtual Bootcamp series, Insights Live webinars, Dublin Discovery Day, and Masterclasses.
- 2,000 trees were planted on behalf of our partners who provided valuable feedback to our engineers during our Product Advisory Groups.
- 3,000 trees were planted on behalf of our Microsoft Advertising Trivia Time winners and participants.
- Our sales teams from across the globe contributed 34,000 trees from team activities.
- New Microsoft Advertising Certified Professionals contributed over 18,500 trees.
- New Microsoft Advertising Insider subscribers contributed almost 20,000 trees.
- Over 1,500 trees were planted on behalf of clients who enrolled in the Microsoft Advertising Partner Program.
- Attendees, both in person and virtual, to our industry engagements, such as DMXCO, SMX West, and Mumbrella360, contributed over 8,000 trees. One attendee, Ashley Segura – TopHatRank’s Vice President of Global Operations, exclaimed, “Yes! I love seeing environmentally friendly initiatives instead of just more swag!”
We want to take a moment to thank and congratulate the amazing work of our clients, industry friends, partners, and employees for their contributions. In recognition of your efforts, you can
download the Sustainability Champion badge and share it on social media.
Continue to support your local sustainability efforts with Give with Bing
If you are looking for other ways to support your local community’s sustainability efforts, download the
Give with Bing extension on Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Firefox. Your Microsoft Bing searches will earn
Microsoft Rewards points that are automatically donated directly to the cause of your choice.
How, why, and where we were planting trees
We aligned our effort with Microsoft’s sustainability commitment announced in January 2020 to get to
Carbon Negative by 2030. Additionally, we wanted to take advantage of a key part of Microsoft's culture: the empowerment of employees to give back to, and be active in, programs that benefit our global and local communities. To do this, Microsoft Advertising teamed up with syndication partner
Ecosia to plant trees on behalf of clients. Ecosia puts its profits from searches toward planting trees, so we were thrilled to work with them to support tree planting in the following locations:
- Uganda – Reforesting wild chimpanzees’ habitat with the Jane Goodall Institute
- Burkina Faso – Turning deserts back into forests
- Brazil – Reforesting rainforests
Hannah Wickes, CMO at Ecosia, commented: “Tree-planting is a key part of the solution to the climate crisis, helping to restore entire ecosystems but also to support the livelihoods of local communities, so it’s exciting to see Microsoft’s efforts from 2020. We’re delighted we could team up with Microsoft Advertising, which enabled us to plant over 90,000 more trees last year across three of our longest-standing projects. It goes to show how much more effectively we can tackle climate change when we come together.”
Thank you for being a part of creating a greener world and 2020, one tree at a time, and helping us reach our 250,000-tree planting goal!