Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres

Large-scale datacentres will face mandatory environmental assessments before they can go ahead, the Scottish government has announced, amid growing public concern about the impact of the AI boom.

Ahead of a vote on a moratorium on new hyperscale datacentres in Holyrood on Wednesday, the Scottish government has tightened rules for new projects by requiring any above 50MW to submit environmental impact assessments, but stopped short of agreeing to an outright halt.

Scotland has seen a boom in planning applications for large datacentres as global investment in AI infrastructure has exploded. Datacentres are critical for storing and processing data used by AI. One scheme in Auchtertool, Fife, has been billed as the second-largest in the world, and is among more than 20 large datacentres proposed so far.

Campaigners have raised concerns about water usage and carbon emissions from large datacentres, and questioned whether Scotland has the capacity to cope with the resulting explosion in energy demand.

The Scottish Greens have submitted a motion for Wednesday calling for a moratorium on new projects “until a national strategy and updated planning guidance are produced, which takes into account the cumulative impacts on energy demand and the environment”.

This month, hundreds from community groups protested outside Holyrood against the construction of large datacentres for AI until clear planning rules and the definition of a “green” datacentre had been formalised.

On Thursday, AI leaders will gather at Dumfries House, Ayrshire, for a summit with King Charles on the future of the technology, amid warnings that the speed of its development threatens the survival of humanity.

In a statement, the public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said the Scottish government recognised that evidence on the environmental impact was still developing,

“We must balance the economic and employment interests in developing datacentres with national energy, climate and community wealth-building ambitions, which are vital to our future prosperity, as well as the potential impact on local communities,” she said.

“Ensuring that an environmental impact assessment is always part of the application process will create a level playing field for developers, and will ensure potentially significant environmental effects are considered from the outset.”

Kat Jones, the director of the NGO Action to Protect Rural Scotland, who has spearheaded demands for a datacentre moratorium in Scotland, said requiring environmental impact assessments was a “no-brainer”, but that questions remained about the impact of the datacentre buildout on Scotland’s infrastructure.

“This is extremely good news and something that we have been asking for since the start of our campaign, but without a moratorium, the other essential work can’t be done. A pause on planning decisions is absolutely essential,” she said.

“Just the first four applications under consideration at the moment would use as much energy as is generated by Torness nuclear power station, which is due to close in 2030. A modest pause will give time for the government to put in place the necessary planning guidance, assess how much datacentre capacity Scotland actually needs and where any should go, and assess and manage the impacts on the grid and the climate.”