Press release: Vote due on plan for data centre with one million tonnes of climate emissions
North Lincolnshire councillors are set to vote tomorrow [Wednesday 11 March] on plans for a data centre which will cause one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in a year.
The figure, which is almost equivalent to the total climate pollution caused by all of the UK’s domestic flights (1.2m tCO2e), has been described in a council report as “not significant”.
The council appears to have arrived at this conclusion by comparing one year of the emissions from the data centre with five years’ worth of emissions for the entirety of the UK – a comparison which tech justice non-profit Foxglove has described as “both mistaken and deeply misleading.”
A council report, which recommends that councillors should be “minded to approve” the planning application, states that “peak annual Scope 2 emissions” caused by the data centre will reach 1,004,478 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) in the year 2033-34. Scope 2 emissions in this case are the climate pollution that will be caused generating the electricity which will power the data centre.
The report goes on to assess the ‘significance’ of these emissions by comparing them “against the UK’s legally binding Carbon Budgets”. It claims that in 2030-2037, the data centre’s emissions will make up “0.026–0.107% of annual [UK carbon] budgets” and therefore are “not significant/minor adverse”.
Foxglove has concerns over the practice of comparing a single facility against the entirety of the UK’s carbon emissions, as in doing so the vast majority of highly polluting facilities would be considered “not significant”.
However, the council’s report also appears to have accepted figures from the developer which compared just one year of the data centre’s emissions against five years of the UK’s total emissions. This produces a deeply misleading, inaccurate figure as they are not comparing like-with-like. Foxglove is urging the council not to proceed relying on these calculations.
Commenting, Tim Squirrell, head of strategy at Foxglove said: “The climate pollution caused by this data centre will be truly vast – in a year, it will produce nearly the same amount of emissions as every domestic flight in the UK.
“It is therefore deeply alarming that North Lincolnshire Council has sought to minimise the significance of these emissions, using calculations that seem to be both mistaken and deeply misleading. The true impact is five times higher than their reporting states.
“It is clearly absurd to claim the pollution produced by this site is ‘not significant’ because it is only a small percentage of the pollution produced by everyone and everything in the UK. But worse still, the council’s figures do not seem to be comparing like with like.
“We are urging the council to think again, and ensure that, at the very least, this decision is made based on reliable and realistic information.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
For further information please contact press [AT] foxglove.org.uk
The Council’s report on the proposed Elsham data centre can be found here: https://m.northlincs.gov.uk/pl_open?REF_NUM_PARAM=PA/2025/643&PK_PARAM=2316476&token=f5c384b00fc4211a88fcbb5157837a38f2c725dd
UK domestic aviation emissions produce 1.2 MtCO2e annually, according to Government figures: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/uk-emissions-trading-scheme-regional-aviation-connectivity/uk-emissions-trading-scheme-impact-of-end-of-aviation-free-allocation-on-regional-connectivity-consultation-accessible-webpage#fn:7