- with readers working within the Insurance and Technology industries
- within Compliance topic(s)
- with Senior Company Executives, HR and Inhouse Counsel
Data centres have been the subject of much attention from government and policy over the last few years - whether being recognised as critical national infrastructure, driving grid connection reform, breaking into the nationally significant infrastructure projects category or as the infrastructure for establishing the UK as an artificial intelligence (AI) global power.
The latest focus comes from a different angle – sustainability. Whilst data centres deliver great capacity for IT workloads that support cloud computing and AI (which in turn form the basis of all systems used by enterprise, healthcare, education, finance transport, government etc), those facilities have impacts on the environment and sustainability. They consume electricity in great quantities, use water (to varying different degrees), produce excess heat and require a physical footprint.
The Environmental Audit Committee's (EAC) new call for evidence into the environmental impact of data centres reminaads all those invested in the sector that future development must meet sustainability objectives whilst delivering commercial demand.
A sector facing rising environmental expectations
The inquiry reflects a wider shift in how policymakers view digital infrastructure. Data centres are recognised as critical national assets, but also as major users of energy and water whose environmental footprint must be aligned with the UK's net‑zero commitments.
Forecasts from the National Energy System Operator indicate that electricity consumption from data centres could quadruple by 2030. Ofgem has also highlighted that around 140 proposed schemes could collectively require up to 50 GW of power, exceeding Great Britain's current peak demand. These figures are shifting the policy narrative. Data centre growth is increasingly being assessed as part of national energy planning, rather than as isolated local developments.
Against that backdrop, the EAC will consider:
- Energy and water consumption, and how future demand is modelled
- Whether existing planning and environmental frameworks remain fit for purpose
- The effect of AI‑driven load growth on power density and capacity requirements
- The potential role of emerging technologies in reducing environmental footprint
This is more than a technical review. It signals that environmental performance is likely to become a more prominent factor in planning decisions, grid access and wider public acceptance. We have already seen that start to play out with the planning permission at the Iver hyperscale facility like to be revoked due to failure to secure and implement the environmental mitigations that had meant the project was not an Environmental Impact Assessment development. If that permission is revoked, the project will likely be set back two years.
Balancing growth and sustainability
The government has to manage two competing objectives: on one hand, to provide incentives for AI to flourish in the UK (be that through nurturing AI suppliers, making AI computing available to our researchers or enabling deployment by UK plc), but on the other hand, to meet its sustainability targets across climate change, decarbonisation, reducing emissions and water usage.
Operators, developers and investors are all alive to the need to source renewable energy as much as possible to power their facilities. That in itself is a challenge – renewable energy is not produced in the areas where facilities are typically sited and is not smooth and reliable enough to power sophisticated data centres with complex systems. Even if renewable energy was a readily available solution, the sheer scale of the predicted energy requirement is possibly large to be met by any renewable source other than nuclear. Other sustainability initiatives are not easy to co-ordinate in a country like the UK with space constraints and aging infrastructure, such as heat waste re-use in local heat networks.
The other balancing factor is whether the use of AI by consumers, enterprise and government will actually result in the energy consumption predictions being made by National Energy System Operator (NESO) and investors alike.
What organisations should be considering now
Whilst there are many variables and unknowns at play, what is becoming clear is that government will not incentivise data centre development at any cost – it must align with, and achieve, the nation's environmental goals.
Operators, developers and investors should:
- Review environmental impact strategies to ensure alignment with emerging expectations
- Stress‑test demand forecasts, particularly where AI‑driven growth is anticipated
- Engage early with planning authorities and local communities to demonstrate responsible development
- Assess opportunities for co‑location, heat reuse or private‑wire solutions that reduce reliance on the grid
Viewed positively, the call for evidence presents an opportunity for the sector to help shape a policy developments that support both sustainability and long‑term digital infrastructure growth.
The EAC call for evidence is open until 6 April 2026.
Read the original article on GowlingWLG.com
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
