Microsoft has been rated the most environmentally friendly company. Here's what it's doing right.

Business Insider

Beck Diefenbach/Reuters

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivers the keynote address during the Microsoft Build 2016 Developer Conference

• Just Capital released its annual ranking of the best companies for the environment, or those with the most robust sustainability practices.
• Microsoft's unique climate practices earned it the top spot in this year's ranking of the most environmentally friendly companies.
• Among its practices, the tech giant has given out 230 grants to fund the use of artificial intelligence to address climate change.
• This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Artificial intelligence can already help make medical diagnoses and weed out terrorists.

Now, Microsoft wants AI to make our planet greener.

Ranked the No. 1 environmentally friendly company by the nonprofit Just Capital, the tech giant is finding innovative ways to combat climate change. Chief among them: a grant launched in 2017 that funds the use of AI to address global warming. The tech company also released code that can aid developers building such algorithms.

Read more: 15 large American companies that have the best environmental policies

The company says it gave 230 grants since launching the initiative. Microsoft also put large government data sets related to the environment on its cloud, Azure, to further help AI developers.

And this isn't the first time Microsoft used AI to address climate change. The company gave farmers in India - a country heavily impacted by rising sea levels and changing temperatures - AI tools to yield higher crops.

Microsoft's unique climate practices are one of the reasons it nabbed the top spot in Just Capital's ranking (founded by billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, Just Capital analyzes corporate responsibility practices at 1,000 of the largest US companies).

Microsoft levies a "carbon fee" for all businesses it works with, charging $15 per metric ton of all carbon emissions from a company.

Microsoft recently made the largest solar agreement by a major US company after purchasing 315 megawatts of new solar power in Virginia.

Around 74% of sustainability companies agree AI will help solve long-standing environmental challenges, according to a survey by Intel.

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