Microsoft will sell the right to emit carbon to its own business units.

The company will charge its business units located in more than 100 countries an internal fee for the right to emit greenhouse gases, its chief operating officer Kevin Turner wrote in a blog post.

Turner announced the initiative at the same time as he announced Microsoft’s pledge to become completely carbon-neutral in fiscal 2013, which starts this July.

“Microsoft will be carbon neutral across all our direct operations including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings,” Turner wrote.

“The part I’m most excited about is our plan to infuse carbon awareness into every part of our business around the world.”

Microsoft has created an accountability model that will make each of its business units responsible for the carbon it generates. This, Turner believes, will create incentives for efficiency improvements, more renewable-energy purchases and better data collection and reporting.

Its internal carbon-emission rates will be based on market pricing for renewable energy and carbon offsets.

The unit running Microsoft’s data center operations – its Global Foundation Services – has been focused on increasing data center energy efficiency for many years now.

Many of the company’s modern data centers are built using its ITPAC design, which ensures deployment of just the necessary amount of IT power in modules that maximize the use of free outside-air cooling.

Microsoft data centers supporting its Azure and Bing clouds also house custom-designed servers that are optimized for energy efficiency.

The Global Foundation Services team is looking to push the envelope further.

The unit’s general manager Christian Belady announced in a blog post in April that the company was working on the concept of a Data Plant. This is a data center that generates its own power using methane (byproduct of water treatment or waste disposal).

A Data Plant can function independently of the electrical grid, converting biogas into computing power and making data just another form of energy.