Edinburgh Council – please require Environmental Impact Assessments for proposals to build massive new data centres

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Two massive data centres are being planned for the outskirts of Edinburgh. Each one would emit more than 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s roughly the same as all the emissions from Edinburgh international airport.

Edinburgh Council is responsible for deciding whether or not these schemes should be given planning permission to go ahead. But worryingly, the council initially ruled that the planning applications didn’t even require an Environmental Impact Assessment.

Thankfully, Edinburgh Council has now told Foxglove that it is willing to “re-evaluate” its decision not to require an Environmental Impact Assessment. That creates an opening – we now need to put them under as much pressure as possible to change that decision.

So please can you send a quick email to Edinburgh Council right now asking them to require full Environmental Impact Assessments for both of these massive data centres?

News

New UK data centres could have a devastating impact on our environment, and our national water and power resources

The government has quietly put building tonnes more of these power and water guzzlers at the heart of their economic plans. 

NEW CASE LAUNCH: Foxglove launches UK’s first legal challenge against the construction of a hyperscale data centre and to defend our power, water and environment 

Hyperscale data centres guzzle drinking water and electrical power and emit polluting emissions, but Rayner said no environmental tests were needed.

The UK government’s environment watchdog has endorsed a dodgy and misleading report from Big Tech PR men, saying data centres don’t use much water – that’s a big problem. Here’s why

Get ready to see this report being used a lot to argue concerns about data centres guzzling water are overblown. Here's why that's BS.

We’ve hit our UK data centre challenge Crowdjustice target! PLUS – new report: 10 new data centres would wipe out ALL annual carbon savings from electric cars

We're still crowdfunding for our stretch goal to contribute to staff time on the case, so if you'd like to donate, it's not too late!