Lessons Learned and Principles to Follow

Part 1. Why and how to act?

There are several reasons why affected communities decide to take action on a project such as the construction of a data center. Some of them are:

a. Seeking and demanding information amid secrecy

International evidence shows that, in general, these projects are highly secretive, with a series of barriers—both from companies and, often, from governments themselves—preventing the true socio-environmental impacts on territories from being revealed.

On the one hand, technology companies and governments are using confidentiality agreements to negotiate the installation of data centers far from public view. In Bessemer, Alabama, for example, officials signed confidentiality agreements to rezone agricultural land for a $14.5 billion project without informing residents (MediaJustice, 2025). This is also repeated when trying to obtain complete information on the socio-environmental impacts of data centers in a territory: often, under the guise of corporate secrecy, companies and governments deny information as crucial as the water consumption of these infrastructures, as happened in the department of Canelones, Uruguay, regarding the construction of a Google data center (Parentelli, 2023).

But there are also barriers caused by obfuscation: complex, plentiful information meant to make it very hard for regular people affected, and often for independent specialists as well, to understand. A classic example is the environmental reports of technology companies (Le Goff, 2025). 

Or, simply put, the strategy is for companies to hide information. For example, according to a leaked internal document, Amazon planned to disclose only the primary water use of its data centers—about 7.7 billion gallons per year—for its “Water Positive” campaign, while hiding figures on secondary use (e.g., water used in electricity generation and other indirect functions) that could double the estimate. The company, which operates hundreds of facilities and already uses massive amounts of water (about 105 billion gallons annually in 2021), was accused by experts of hiding its true “water footprint” by not including indirect use, which the document states makes up about 90% of the total (Barratt & Furneaux, 2025). This is also interesting because just weeks before this leak became public, Amazon had released a special video explaining how its data centers use water and its commitment to being “Water Positive” (Amazon, 2025).

Thus, gathering information from communities takes different forms: researching open sources such as media and public reports, requesting information from the competent authorities if jurisdictions allow it, gathering information from indirect sources (such as other similar experiences around the world), or even going to court, as in the case of the Google data center in Canelones, Uruguay. 

Because the emergence of data centers is relatively new in many countries, especially at the hyperscale demanded by artificial intelligence, communities do not have much capacity to respond immediately, and considerable time must be invested in building technical knowledge and capabilities. This knowledge gap, however, is narrowing as the socio-environmental impacts of data centers are increasingly in the public eye, enabling more effective dissemination of information.

b. Publicly denounce non-compliance with appropriate socio-environmental standards in their territories

Once communities understand the socio-environmental impacts of data centers in their areas, they often want to participate in decision-making about the project. Depending on the jurisdiction, there might be formal ways to do this. Even if those don’t exist, community meetings tend to attract more people from the area, local authorities, related organizations, and others to inform, raise concerns, and provide training.

Many organizations scale up their actions and produce materials to denounce the situation: flyers, websites, reports, social media posts, columns, and appearances in community and traditional media, documenting their positions and concerns. 

Public actions by communities and academia

There are many examples of their diversity. For instance, MOSACAT (Community Socio-Environmental Movement in Defense of Water and Territory) has gained recognition for leading the opposition to Google’s data center in Cerrillos, Santiago, Chile. As Lehuedé (2025) explains, “MOSACAT put up posters, distributed flyers at markets, collected signatures, organized demonstrations at the construction site, held neighborhood assemblies, and met with Google representatives to push for change. A few months after its founding, MOSACAT succeeded in including a question about the data center in a public (though non-binding) referendum, in which 38% of residents approved the project and 49% rejected it. Three years later, MOSACAT revealed that Google had committed to “not using water” to cool its servers.”

For its part, the US organization MediaJustice has worked with communities in the southern states of that country to understand the socio-environmental impacts they face due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence and its data centers. In this context, in 2025 it launched a toolkit with a series of materials to help communities organize themselves and reflect on the construction of data centers. 

These reflections also take the form of art. In early 2025, Chile inaugurated its pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with the work “Reflective Intelligences,” led by curators Serena Dambrosio, Nicolás Díaz, and Linda Schilling. “The installation highlights the potential of architecture when it comes to addressing data centers. The pavilion makes an effort to reconstruct the 25 data centers located in Chile that have been submitted to the Environmental Impact Assessment Service. These reports present an abstract and cryptic architecture that has been difficult to understand, and the communities that coexist with these infrastructures have been faced with the task of having to live with this technology,” explained Nicolás Díaz (Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urban Studies, PUC, 2025).

Work “Reflexive Intelligences.”

c. Mitigating damage; stopping projects 

The expectations of a single community can be very varied and complex. Some aim to mitigate the most harmful socio-environmental impacts of data centers in their community; others want to take advantage of implementing environmental standards for the data centers of large technology companies (the most powerful companies in the world today) to strategically pressure other corporate actors with worse environmental performance in their territory to follow suit; some seek external remediation measures that will benefit other community needs; while others want to stop the project altogether, even through the courts, because they do not want it in their territory or for deeper reasons of environmental justice. 

Regardless of the reasons, this decision must be made in the context of the community and in a spirit of democratic coexistence. However, it is worth noting that it is often the action of communities—whether through public pressure or the courts—that pushes authorities to demand improvements and/or companies to introduce more efficient technologies and mechanisms for resource use in data centers. In other words, doing nothing seems to be the worst course of action.

Two complementary documents may be important for furthering the actions that can be taken by communities:

d. Participating in public policies related to data centers

Many governments at different levels are developing public policies for data center installations in their jurisdictions. These policies include tax exemptions, deregulation, environmental regulations, and investment programs to attract technology companies to establish data centers, among other initiatives.

Unfortunately, community and civil society participation is not always guaranteed. However, communities and organizations around the world are already thinking about socio-environmental standards for data centers that can serve as inspiration.

Part 2: Global experiences

1. United States

According to a report by Data Center Watch (2025) focusing on the United States, between May 2024 and March 2025, at least 142 activist groups in 24 states were identified as organizing opposition to the construction or expansion of hyperscale data centers. Additionally, during this period, it is estimated that US$18 billion in projects were blocked, and another US$46 billion were delayed due to local opposition. What lessons can be drawn from this opposition?

• The figures show that community resistance—not just symbolic, but with real effects on investment and timelines—can become a decisive factor in the development of hyperscale data centers. For Data Center Watch, data centers are emerging as the new focus of local resistance (“NIMBY”), rather than factories, shopping malls, or logistics parks.

• Recurring objections cited include: increased utility bills, high water consumption, noise, impact on property values, and loss of green space. These concerns provide a very concrete framework for communities to evaluate local data center proposals, focusing on how the project aligns with water resources, energy, environmental integrity, and quality of life.

• The report highlights the importance of the local level: most permitting and zoning decisions occur at the municipal or county level. This means that even if there is momentum from federal or corporate sources, community resistance can succeed through local channels. For global communities, it means that organizing at the municipal level, monitoring public hearings, and participating in zoning processes can be as effective, or even more effective, than trying to reverse national policies.

• Opposition is not limited to just one political ideology: both conservative and progressive officials have voiced concerns. For instance, the right focuses on the effects on the power grid, tax incentives, and the burden on taxpayers; the left highlights the environmental impact, water usage, and the “carbon footprint” of data. This “bipartisan” dimension suggests that arguments against certain types of technological infrastructure can build cross-party alliances that go beyond the traditional left-right spectrum.

• Finally, the report suggests that this opposition phenomenon is still growing and becoming more professional: in some states, coalitions and organized groups of multiple local groups are forming, with resources to litigate, lobby the media, and influence state or local regulations. For global communities, this can serve as inspiration to forge alliances among neighbors, environmental NGOs, homeowners’ associations, and other entities that are considering an active role in data center developments.

2. Europe

A recent survey published in October 2025, commissioned by Beyond Fossil Fuels and conducted by Savanta (2025) in five European countries — Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, and Ireland — with the participation of more than 5,000 people, revealed that a overwhelming majority opposes the uncontrollned expansion of data centers without guarantees regarding their energy, water, and economic impact. 

In particular, 72% of respondents believe that new data centers should be approved only if they include additional renewable energy capacity to support them; 64% think they should not be built if fossil fuels power them; and 76% call for them to be powered exclusively by renewable sources. 

Public concern is not limited to climate change, but also extends to the risk that data centers will consume electricity and water that could be used for other priority social needs—such as housing, health, and food—and that these centers will “jump the queue” for access to energy or water at times of stress on the grid or water resources. Furthermore, only 3-4% of respondents believed that data centers should be given priority in water or energy supply in critical situations, demonstrating the low social importance that citizens assign to this type of infrastructure compared to basic services.  

In addition, the statement points to strong demand for “Big Tech” companies and data center operators to be more transparent: 85% of respondents want these operators to publish their environmental impacts, and 83% demand that they report on their energy consumption and electricity source. 

It also argues that governments should establish clear criteria for electricity distribution, prioritizing critical social uses over the indiscriminate deployment of data centers. 

Based on these results, the call is to:

• Reorienting energy priorities towards the common good

The report argues that European governments should establish clear rules for energy prioritization so that data centers do not compete on equal terms with hospitals, public transportation, or housing. The idea is that electricity and water should be allocated according to criteria of social utility and resilience, not according to the ability of big tech companies to pay. This point implies that states should introduce mechanisms to prioritize consumption during scarcity or network overload, ensuring that critical human uses take precedence over intensive corporate uses.

• Making authorizations conditional on additional renewable energy contributions

Seventy-two percent of Europeans surveyed support approving new data centers only if they add new renewable capacity to the grid, not just by purchasing it. In terms of public policy, this means shifting from an “energy equivalent” model—where companies buy green certificates—to a “renewable additionality” model, where each new technological installation must directly contribute to expanding the clean energy matrix. Governments could, for example, require that each megawatt consumed be linked to an equivalent investment in local solar or wind power.

• Imposing limits or temporary moratoriums in saturated areas

The report suggests that countries or regions with fragile electricity grids or high water competition should be able to establish moratoriums or quotas on data center growth. This stems from the public perception that digital infrastructure is “jumping the queue” and causing water and energy stress. Politically, it means that governments could set exclusion zones or maximum quotas per region, following examples from Ireland or the Netherlands, where temporary limits on new connections are already in place.

• Strengthening environmental transparency and accountability

A majority of 85% demand that Big Tech companies publish their actual energy, water, and emissions data. This suggests that policy-making should include public reporting obligations (similar to those in industrial sectors), with verifiable audits and standardization of metrics. Policies could be based on schemes such as the EU’s revised Energy Efficiency Directive, which already requires annual reporting for data centers above 500 kW.

• Incorporating environmental justice and redistributive taxation

The report argues that national policies must recognize that data centers primarily benefit large technology corporations while shifting environmental and infrastructure costs to the public. This highlights the need for corrective fiscal instruments—for example, taxes on intensive energy or water use, or compensatory contributions to local energy transition funds. These measures would seek to balance the burden and restore benefits to the communities where the infrastructure is located.

• Framing digital planning within a just energy transition

Finally, Beyond Fossil Fuels warns that the expansion of artificial intelligence and data storage must be explicitly integrated into energy and climate transition plans, rather than being treated as a separate sector. This means that digital planning—such as approving technology parks or data centers—must align with national climate targets and carbon budgets, ensuring that “digital growth” does not undermine the progress made in decarbonization.