Elsham data centre approved despite climate emissions concerns
North Lincolnshire Council has approved outline planning permission for a large-scale data centre, despite warnings over its projected environmental impact.
A council in the East of England has approved outline planning permission for a large-scale data centre which campaigners say could cause annual climate pollution close to that produced by every domestic flight in the UK.
Councillors on North Lincolnshire Council’s planning committee voted unanimously in favour of the proposed Elsham data centre, despite concerns raised about its environmental impact and figures used in the planning documents.
According to the council’s own documents, the data centre’s “peak annual Scope 2 emissions” are expected to reach 1,004,478 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033-34.
Scope 2 emissions refer to the climate pollution caused by generating the electricity needed to power the site.
The projected figure is close to the total climate pollution caused by all domestic flights in the UK, which is estimated at 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
However, a council report described the emissions as “not significant”.
Tech justice non-profit Foxglove said the council appeared to have reached that conclusion by comparing one year of emissions from the data centre with five years’ worth of emissions for the whole of the UK.
Foxglove described the comparison as “both mistaken and deeply misleading” and warned the planning committee about the issue before the vote.
Despite those concerns, the committee approved the development.
Tim Squirrell, head of strategy at Foxglove, criticised the decision.
He said: “In approving this monstrous data centre, the council failed to properly weigh the enormous harms to the environment of the sheer quantities of electricity this development will use.
“They ignored their own policy which states 20% of energy must be generated through on-site renewables, and they credulously accepted the developer’s incorrect figures which underestimated the impact of this data centre on the UK’s carbon budget by a factor of five.
“It is incredibly disappointing to see Big Tech’s dubious claims of economic growth spurred by AI data centres be put ahead of the ongoing climate crisis.”