UK Green Party demands pause on data centre construction over AI environmental impact

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LONDON — The Green Party’s Zack Polanski has called on the U.K. government to hit “pause” on the construction of data centers to reflect on the environmental and societal impacts of the facilities behind the AI boom.

The intervention by Polanski, who has positioned himself as a progressive firebrand to the left of the governing Labour Party, is a sign that a fierce political battle over data centers playing out across the U.S. could soon make its way to the U.K.

Polanski on Friday stopped short of calling for a full moratorium, but argued that the Labour government has recklessly sought to attract energy and water-intensive data centers to the U.K. without sufficient safeguards or transparency about how local communities would benefit.

“Right now the government is letting Big Tech companies build data centers left right and center with no safeguards and frankly no idea,” Polanski said in comments to POLITICO.

“This summer three quarters of this country was in drought — and yet the government is greenlighting the development of data centers which will each use as much water as a small town.

“Planning permission should only be granted for data centers if they meet the highest possible standards of environmental sustainability and community consultation — no more riding roughshod over local communities.”

Since its election in 2024, the Labour government has introduced policies to encourage and speed up the construction of data centers in the U.K., which it argues are needed to ensure the country’s independence amid the global AI race.

Ministers argue that the push is consistent with the government’s environmental targets and has supported investment and jobs across the country.

A senior Labour Party official, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said: “A pause on building new data centers would simply send investment and good jobs abroad, while leaving Britain dependent on overseas computing for the processing of sensitive health and defense data. Put simply: it would be a disaster for jobs and national security.”

But, in an acknowledgement of growing public scrutiny, they added “this does not mean a blank cheque for Big Tech or that every data center should be approved,” and said “developers must plan to use clean power, use water responsibly, create British jobs and supply chains, and provide investment to the communities in which they are built.”

Political opening

Labour’s AI Minister Kanishka Narayan has said data centers can form part of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s mission to reindustrialize and bring growth to different parts of the country while boosting the U.K.’s resilience and complying with green goals.

James Meadway, who previously advised former left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and now leads Verdant, a Green Party-aligned think tank, said the Labour government had been “a massive enthusiast of data centers.”

In contrast, he said the Greens “have a relatively distinctive position to stake out here, which, frankly, matches the public mood.”

He said Polanski’s party could capitalize on public concern about data centers — whether for environmental reasons, moral objections to Big Tech or because the plants are an “eyesore” — and build on local opposition campaigns to “make the issue their own.”

Citing the senate race in Texas — where Democrat candidate James Talarico has managed to win support from traditionally Republican voters with his stance on data centers — Meadway said the issue provided a way for the Greens to reach new voters.

“I don’t think campaigners should be particularly fussy about why people are turning up and saying they don’t want it,” Meadway added, “It’s up to the Greens to try and turn that [opposition] into a national policy and a national program to suggest an alternative.”

Transatlantic lessons

British attitudes to data centers so far remain significantly more positive than in the U.S., where support has plummeted over the last year, said Neil Ross, a partner at research firm Public First.

Opposition to data centers in the U.K. has been largely driven by local and environmental concerns, Ross said.

In contrast, concerns about the impact on household energy bills across the U.S. have inspired Republican and Democrat state and national politicians from Texas to New York to introduce or demand moratoriums ahead of the midterms elections in November.

However, there are signs that the U.K. backlash is growing.

Planning applications for new data centers have faced large-scale opposition and protests across the country in recent months, particularly in rural areas.

Opposition is also mounting in Scotland, where many of the U.K.’s largest projects have been proposed by developers hoping to tap into the region’s ample renewable energy supplies — an approach encouraged by the Labour government.

The Scottish Government, which sets planning policy in Scotland, is facing pressure to impose a freeze. The ruling Scottish National Party’s membership body endorsed a halt to new data centers earlier this year, and the Scottish Green Party — which is formally separate but affiliated to Polanski’s English outfit — has also called for “an urgent moratorium.”

Tech pushes back

Industry representatives said it would be inappropriate to import U.S.-style calls for a moratoriums to the U.K.

While the U.K. has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of data center proposals, the number and size of projects being planned are still dwarfed by those sweeping the U.S.

Matt Evans, director of markets at industry body TechUK, said the industry acknowledged the need to better explain “what they [data centers] do and the benefits they can bring,” but argued: “Policy should be based on evidence, and the facts are that the U.S. has a very different regulatory regime when it comes to energy, water or even noise.”

“The U.K. data center sector is committed to carbon free energy, is investing to lower or remove water use and adheres to really strict environmental standards,” he said.

Charlotte Brumpton Childs, national secretary of the Labour-affiliated GMB union, meanwhile argued that it was “crucial” for the U.K. to have its own tech infrastructure, and said the “with the right planning” data centers could “deliver good jobs and a secure future leading in technology.”

But Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, a non-profit which has successfully challenged planning approvals for data centers, said a temporary freeze could allow the government to fill in gaps in the U.K.’s current policy framework and ensure developers cover the full environmental and social cost of data centers.

However, “moratoriums must not be a distraction,” he said, arguing that there was more local and national governments could be doing through existing planning laws to limit harmful impacts.