EU bowed to Big Tech lobbying to keep datacentre impact secret

Carved out an environmental impact clause exception

Investigators have discovered that the European Commission bowed to the demands of Big Tech lobbyists that the environmental impact of individual datacentres be kept out of the public eye.

Microsoft and DigitalEurope, a lobby group representing tech companies including Amazon, Google and Meta, successfully lobbied EU lawmakers in 2024 for a legal carve out from transparency laws for individual datacentres on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

That’s according to investigative journalists from Investigate Europe, in co-ordination with Le Monde, El Pais and The Guardian.

Legal experts warn that the move could violate EU transparency rules and the Aarhus Convention, an international treaty ensuring access to environmental information.

With the EU set to triple its datacentre capacity by 2029, investing €176 billion over the next five years, the European Commission (EC) began collecting metrics like energy efficiency and water consumption. However, following intensive industry lobbying, it amended the 2023 legislation to classify this data as confidential and commercially sensitive, preventing public access.

Professor Jerzy Jendrośka, an expert in environmental law expert, said: "In two decades, I cannot recall a comparable case. This clearly seems not to be in line with the convention."

Ben Youriev, a lobbying researcher, told The Guardian the move represents a reversal for an industry formerly keen to burnish its green credentials.

“Where the industry was previously outspoken in its support for clean energy and emissions reductions, many firms have since fallen silent,” he said.

“Instead, they appear to be prioritising the rapid build-out of datacentre infrastructure globally over supporting clean energy and rapid emissions reductions.”

Investigate Europe’s reporters found that EU member states are encouraged to refuse public requests for information about individual datacentres. A leaked email from a senior EC official instructed national authorities to "keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual data centres."

The confidentiality clause is part of broader industry-friendly amendments to EU regulations, raising questions about the EC’s priorities, said Bram Vranken of the Corporate Europe Observatory: "Who does the Commission really represent: Big Tech or the public interest?"

Following the amendment, which adopted suggested wording by Microsoft and DigitalEurope almost verbatim, only aggregated, national-level data is available to public, leaving communities, campaigners, researchers and journalists unable to scrutinise the environmental impact of individual facilities.

The secrecy extends beyond environmental data. The Commission’s draft bill to expedite environmental impact assessments for data centres (again influenced by Microsoft and Amazon), includes fast-tracked processes and limited public consultation.

As Europe plans to invest €176 billion in datacentres over the next five years, the environmental and social costs remain obscured.

The industry has “a real interest in keeping the numbers hidden”, said Alex de Vries-Gao, a researcher at VU Amsterdam. “You typically have to bend over backward to come up with any numbers."

Benoit Petit, head of DCWatch, a collaborative research project focused on datacentres' environmental footprint, called the news "A real disappointment."

In a post on Mastodon he said: "Data from the EED collection were eagerly awaited. They were to be published at an aggregated level by operator, not by site. In the end, they will be published at national level only. Bravo M$"

Last year investigators found that Amazon was strategising over how to avoid revealing its true water footprint, while Google shifted its once prominent net-zero pledge out of spotlight as AI energy demands fuel rising electricity use and carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, Computing’s ongoing research into the hyperscalers has found environmental impact reports increasingly filled with cherry picked statistics, extraneous detail and gorgeous images, but little in the way of hard data.