is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.
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One of the top civil rights organizations in the US is putting the tech industry “on alert,” issuing a call to action for communities to demand more accountability from companies building new data centers.
Electricity demand is rising in the US for the first time in nearly two decades, thanks in large part to massive new data centers that are being built to support advancements in AI. Utilities and some tech companies are increasingly meeting that demand with fossil fuels that worsen air quality and exacerbate the climate crisis — prompting the NAACP to issue “guiding principles” to help local community members to fight back.
“No community should be forced to sacrifice clean air, clean water, or safe homes so that corporations and billionaires can build energy-hungry facilities,” the group said in guiding principles that it shared exclusively with The Verge.
“No community should be forced to sacrifice clean air, clean water, or safe homes”
The NAACP is already in this fight, challenging Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, it’s also rallying others across the US to take a stand with the release of a “unifying guide” for groups opposing new data centers and fossil fuel infrastructure. It’s a warning to the tech industry to expect more resistance, and potentially legal action, if it doesn’t heed locals’ concerns.
“It allows for tech companies to be on alert,” Abre’ Conner, director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP, tells The Verge. “That if they do not meet our demands as it relates to the guiding principles, that if we move into other forms of advocacy including filing litigation, that there shouldn’t be any shock or question as to why we’re doing that.”
The framework calls for more transparency from companies building these data centers. Specifically, it says that they should disclose details on a facility’s water and energy consumption, emissions, subsidies, and corporate ownership as soon as they propose a new project. Companies should continue sharing this data with local communities after the data centers go into operation, the group demands.
Energy and water efficiency standards ought to be legally binding, along with any commitments that a company makes to mitigate the facility’s impact on a region. That can be accomplished through community benefit agreements struck between companies, community groups, and regulatory agencies, for example. The NAACP is already planning on developing templates for such agreements that advocates can use in the future, Conner says.
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