The climate paradox of Silicon Valley crystallized in August 2025 when Business Insider reported on a growing exodus from Microsoft. Employees were resigning not over compensation packages or career trajectories, but over a fundamental moral contradiction: the company’s celebrated climate commitments existed alongside lucrative contracts that supercharged fossil fuel extraction.
Among those who left were Holly and Will, two veterans who had spent years attempting to reform the system from within. Their departure marked not an end but a beginning: the launch of the Enabled Emissions campaign, a movement aimed at forcing Big Tech to reckon with its role in accelerating the climate crisis.
Intrigued by the Business Insider report, DesignWhine reached out to Holly for an in-depth conversation about her journey from Microsoft insider to climate activist, and what she’s learned about the hidden environmental costs of advanced technology.
When an AI system helps an oil company locate new reserves or optimize drilling operations, the resulting emissions belong in a distinct category – Enabled Emissions
The term they coined, enabled emissions, describes a category of carbon pollution that has largely escaped public scrutiny. These are not the emissions from powering data centers or manufacturing devices. Instead, they represent the fossil fuels extracted and burned because advanced technologies made their production economically viable.
When an AI system helps an oil company locate new reserves or optimize drilling operations, when cloud computing enables real-time monitoring of extraction equipment, when IoT sensors increase recovery rates from aging wells, the resulting emissions belong in a distinct category. They would not exist without the technology that made them possible.
The Genesis of a Campaign
When DesignWhine asked Holly how she and Will developed the concept of enabled emissions and how its implications stretch beyond Microsoft, her answer revealed years of internal struggle.
“Will and I developed the concept of enabled emissions after years of seeing firsthand how advanced technologies were deliberately applied to increase fossil fuel production,” Holly tells DesignWhine. “At Microsoft, we saw AI, cloud, and IoT tools being marketed to and used by oil and gas companies as ways to make production cheaper, faster, and more profitable. These weren’t emissions that would have occurred otherwise – technology was making them possible, but the companies who are creating the technology take no responsibility for their impacts. That gap in accountability inspired us to define ‘enabled emissions.'”
Microsoft had positioned itself as a climate leader, committing to become carbon negative by 2030 yet sales teams were closing deals that did precisely the opposite
The disconnect was jarring. Microsoft had positioned itself as a climate leader, committing to become carbon negative by 2030 and remove all historical emissions by 2050 . CEO Satya Nadella had written to shareholders about the company’s responsibility to ensure technology benefits “everyone on the planet, including the planet itself.” Corporate communications emphasized how AI could accelerate the transition to net-zero emissions and build climate resilience. Yet parallel to this messaging, sales teams were closing deals that did precisely the opposite.
In her conversation with DesignWhine, Holly emphasized that the implications extend across the industry. “While Microsoft is a vivid case study, the implications extend across Big Tech,” she explains. “Amazon, Google, and countless smaller tech firms are all developing solutions that make fossil fuel expansion easier, and none of them are accounting for the additional emissions they’re unleashing.”
Quantifying the Invisible
DesignWhine pressed Holly on how exactly these enabled emissions are calculated, given the complexity of tracing technology’s downstream impacts. Her explanation was methodical and revealed the scale of the problem. “Enabled emissions are calculated by examining the increase in fossil fuel production made possible by a specific technology deployment,” Holly explains to DesignWhine. “For example, if an AI system allows an oil company to boost recovery rates by a measurable percentage, the corresponding increase in extracted fossil fuels—and the eventual emissions when those fuels are burned—can be quantified. Consultancy studies, like Accenture’s finding that digital strategies can increase production by up to 15%, give a sense of scale.”
The numbers are staggering when applied across global operations. Each percentage point represents millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide. “We believe the issue is widespread across Microsoft’s fossil-fuel contracts, because many contracts are explicitly framed around efficiency, yield, and recovery improvements that directly result in higher production volumes,” Holly tells DesignWhine.
Naming the Contradiction
When DesignWhine asked about the internal response to framing Microsoft’s situation as hypocrisy, Holly’s account revealed the depth of disillusionment inside the company. The word landed with force. Microsoft had built a reputation that attracted employees specifically because of its climate stance. People wanted to work for a company doing good in the world, contributing to solutions rather than problems.
“Among our peers, the term ‘hypocrisy’ resonated because it named the contradiction so clearly,” Holly tells DesignWhine. “Microsoft’s public climate commitments are ambitious and widely celebrated, even going so far as to express to shareholders the ‘responsibility we have to ensure that the technology we create always benefits everyone on the planet, including the planet itself,’ as well as Microsoft’s published stance that, ‘Given the urgency of the planetary crisis, society needs to push harder on the AI accelerator while establishing guardrails that steer the world safely, securely, and equitably toward net-zero emissions, climate resilience, and a nature-positive future.'”
I met dozens, if not hundreds, of people who work(ed) at the company because of its commitment to climate, and wanted to work for a company that was going good in the world
The revelation that paychecks were tied to fossil fuel expansion created profound discomfort. “I met dozens, if not hundreds, of people who work(ed) at the company because of its commitment to climate, and wanted to work for a company that was going good in the world,” Holly recalls in her interview with DesignWhine. “So internally, many of us were extremely uncomfortable with the massive scale of the deals that enabled fossil fuel expansion—which contributed to our paychecks. Some employees expressed gratitude that the hypocrisy was being called out; others were cautious, worried about how leadership might respond. But overall, the framing opened up more candid conversations than we’d been able to have before.”
The Illusion of Reform
Over several years, Holly and her colleagues proposed internal solutions. They suggested applying the same science-based frameworks to fossil fuel contracts that Microsoft used for its own emissions reduction targets. They advocated for guardrails governing how customers could deploy the company’s most powerful AI capabilities. They pushed for transparent disclosure of contract impacts, arguing that stakeholders deserved to know the enabled emissions generated by Microsoft’s technology.
When DesignWhine asked about the most promising solutions that leadership agreed with but failed to implement, Holly’s frustration was palpable. “Some of the most promising ideas included applying the same science-based frameworks to fossil fuel contracts that Microsoft applies to its own operations, creating internal guardrails for how customers can use the company’s most advanced AI solutions, and transparently disclosing the impacts of these partnerships,” she explains. “Leadership often voiced agreement with these principles, but implementation stalled because of competing business priorities, the influence of high-revenue contracts, and a lack of external pressure. Without accountability from outside the company, the incentive to change wasn’t strong enough.”
The pattern revealed a structural problem. Without external accountability, without pressure from investors or regulators or the public, internal advocacy had limited leverage. High-revenue contracts with fossil fuel companies carried more weight than employee concerns, regardless of how well-reasoned those concerns might be.
From Internal Advocacy to Public Campaign
The decision to leave Microsoft and launch the Enabled Emissions campaign represented a strategic shift. If change wouldn’t come from within, it would need to be forced from without. The campaign operates on multiple fronts: public education, policy engagement, and building coalitions with climate organizations and tech watchdogs. The goal is creating the external pressure that internal advocacy couldn’t generate.
When DesignWhine asked about early signs of traction, Holly’s response suggested the campaign is gaining momentum faster than expected. “Since launching the Enabled Emissions campaign, we’ve seen momentum build in a few ways: journalists, climate groups, and tech watchdogs are starting to include enabled emisisons in the framing of the climate & tech conversation,” Holly shares with DesignWhine. “Policymakers are starting to come to us with questions about Big Tech’s role in fossil fuel expansion. And employees inside various companies are reaching out to us, saying the campaign has given them language to name their concerns internally. The traction confirms there’s a growing appetite for accountability in this space.”
Policymakers are starting to come to us with questions about Big Tech’s role in fossil fuel expansion
The concept of enabled emissions fills a gap in how we understand technology’s climate impact. Traditional carbon accounting focuses on direct emissions and supply chain footprints. It misses entirely the emissions that technology makes possible elsewhere in the economy. As AI systems become more powerful and pervasive, this blind spot becomes more dangerous.
A Vision for Accountability
The Enabled Emissions campaign isn’t calling for tech companies to abandon all work with energy sector clients. The transformation to renewable energy requires sophisticated technology for grid management, storage optimization, and efficiency improvements. The distinction lies in whether technology accelerates fossil fuel phase-out or enables its expansion.
DesignWhine asked Holly what measurable changes she would expect within five years if Big Tech embraced full transparency and accountability tomorrow. Her vision was both ambitious and specific.
“Within five years, we’d expect to see measurable reductions in fossil fuel expansion enabled by advanced technologies,” Holly explains to DesignWhine. “Companies would disclose the impacts of their contracts, making it harder to hide behind green branding while fueling fossil growth. Procurement and policy decisions could then be informed by these disclosures, directing public and private investment away from contracts and technologies that lock in fossil infrastructure. Most importantly, it would shift the narrative—making it clear that tech is not a neutral enabler but an active driver of climate outcomes and the future of our shared planet.”
Within five years, we’d expect to see measurable reductions in fossil fuel expansion enabled by advanced technologies
This reframing matters because the dominant Silicon Valley ideology treats technology as value-neutral, a tool that can be used for good or ill depending on who wields it. But when AI systems are specifically designed to optimize fossil fuel extraction, when cloud platforms are marketed on their ability to increase oil production, neutrality becomes a convenient fiction.
The enabled emissions framework forces a reckoning with that fiction. It asks uncomfortable questions about responsibility and complicity. If Microsoft develops an AI system that helps an oil company extract an additional ten million barrels, who bears responsibility for the emissions from burning that oil? The company that extracted it? The consumers who used it? Or also the tech company that made the extraction possible?
The Broader Implications
The story Holly shared with DesignWhine extends beyond any single company. It’s about how entire industries can develop structural incentives that run counter to existential threats. Tech companies compete for lucrative fossil fuel contracts while simultaneously competing over who has the most ambitious climate commitments. This produces the kind of cognitive dissonance that leads talented people to resign rather than participate.
But it also suggests a path forward. The employees leaving these companies, the journalists covering enabled emissions, the policymakers asking questions, and the climate organizations incorporating this framework into their advocacy collectively represent a form of accountability that internal processes couldn’t provide. They’re building external pressure where none existed before.
The climate crisis operates on timelines measured in years and decades, while quarterly earnings reports and annual reviews operate on much shorter cycles. Reconciling these timescales requires more than voluntary commitments and sustainability reports. It requires transparency that makes enabled emissions visible, accountability mechanisms that create consequences for generating them, and a fundamental rethinking of technology’s role in either accelerating or solving the defining challenge of our era.
Holly and Will’s campaign represents a bet that the gap between Big Tech’s climate rhetoric and reality can be closed through sustained public pressure
Holly and Will’s campaign represents a bet that such a rethinking is possible, that the gap between Big Tech’s climate rhetoric and reality can be closed not through internal advocacy alone but through sustained public pressure informed by clear frameworks like enabled emissions. Whether that bet pays off will depend partly on how many others inside these companies find the courage to speak up, and how effectively those outside can build the accountability structures that internal reform efforts couldn’t create on their own.
As Holly’s conversation with DesignWhine makes clear, the question isn’t whether technology will play a role in the climate crisis. It already does, every day, through enabled emissions that corporate carbon accounting conveniently ignores. The question is whether that role will be named, measured, and ultimately changed before those emissions make the crisis irreversible.
