Resistance to data centres is growing all over the world, and the strategies used to oppose their expansion have been highly diverse – from local protests to online campaigns to residents lobbying their city council. However, there has been less attention paid to the legal approach. Foxglove, a litigation and campaigning non-profit based in the UK, led the first ever successful legal challenge to a data center project in the UK, offering us a new perspective on how to resist data center expansion.
In a recent interview on the podcast “Tech won’t save us”, podcast host Paris Marx is in conversation with the co-executive director of Foxglove, Martha Dark, discussing their work in opposing data centers, in the UK and in South Africa.
The UK legal challenge
A ‘hyperscale’ data center was planned to be built out in Woodlands Park, about two hours from London. Initially rejected by the local authority, the decision was later overthrown by the central government. Foxglove decided to challenge the decision by highlighting that no environmental assessment of the impacts of that data center had been made – and that the government should therefore not have been in a stand to approve the project. They won their challenge, with the central government retracting their approval quoting a “serious logical error”.
Their general tactic
Martha Dark highlights that most of their legal challenges to data centers in the UK used one of the following two objections:
- The project developers failed to provide sufficient information about the impacts of the planned data center, for example on the environment, water availability, housing etc.
- The environmental impacts of the data center as announced by the project developers are incompatible with the UK reaching its emission targets.
In the long run
With these legal challenges, Foxglove hopes to be part of a greater shift towards more regulation in the build-out of data centers. They emphasize that data center developers should be legally bound to the claims they make in the applications, which is not the case right now. They also advocate for mandatory environmental assessments of data center projects as well as for a requirement for developers to demonstrate that the project will not increase the UK’s overall climate emissions or local water scarcity.
Finally, the UK is not the only place where Foxglove is challenging data center expansion. Together with Housing Assembly and Legal Resource Center, they are working on legally challenging data center projects in South Africa as well, such as a planned hyperscale data center in Cape Town, a city which only a few years ago ran out of water. They highlight in their case that the project completely fails to consider critical impacts on the environment, water availability, noise pollution, housing and more.
Advice for organizers
At a live podcast recording of the Macrodose podcast in London, at an event celebrating the release of Paris Marx’s new book Hyperscale and hosted by Foxglove, he spoke again with Martha Dark and they had some advice for organizers fighting data centers.
- Take hope and realise our power
Organising against data centres has brought together people from different political leanings and they are getting real wins. In the UK and Ireland multiple data centre projects have been stopped and there are hundreds of local moratoriums across the United States. It became a major factor in the US midterm elections, with senior politicians across the political spectrum losing their elections over their support for data centres. It demonstrates that people might have different values and concerns, but we can come together and tell the ones in power that we are not ready to accept their vision of the world.
- Start early and locally
There are already a lot of good laws on the book that can be wielded against data centres so working with lawyers who know the area can yield benefits. The key is working together from an early stage before any plans are approved. On top of any legal action, it’s important to organise with local councillors and politicians and to raise a public fuss.
- Ask who benefits
It is okay if there is disagreement about why you don’t want a data centre – it makes for a more interesting and vibrant coalition. However, the one thing that everyone should focus on in their messaging is the question of who benefits and who pays the price.
- Think about the next step
Data centers are not the end. As we can see with the public backlash against smart glasses and automated licence plate readers, there is a broader desire to see the tech industry held to account. We need to make sure we can wield this anger towards data centers and use it to continue to fight for the world we want to see.
You can hear the full recording of this episode of the Macrodose podcast ‘The AI Data Centres Fight w/ Paris Marx, Sarah Jaffe & Martha Dark’ here or on your preferred platform.
Image: Deborah Lupton / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/