US tech firms pushed the EU to shield datacentre emissions from public view. The change is written into EU rules.
Lobbying rewrote transparency rules
Documents obtained by the investigative cooperative Investigate Europe show that Microsoft and other US technology companies successfully lobbied Brussels to classify detailed environmental data from individual datacentres as confidential. According to the files cited by the story, industry proposals in the 2024 consultations appear directly in the Commission's final wording — a close match that suggests lobbying influenced the drafting.
The result is a legal requirement that national authorities and the commission keep information on the performance and energy use of individual datacentres out of the public domain. The final clause says the commission and member states must "keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual datacentres that are communicated to the database".
Under the new text, only aggregated national summaries are published, so researchers and the public can't access site-by-site energy figures. Requests for access to more detailed records, including freedom of information requests, have been refused on the basis of the confidentiality provision.
Why the change matters
The shift comes as Europe seeks to expand its datacentre capacity rapidly. The EU has set an objective to roughly treble capacity within five to seven years to underpin an ambition to be a leader in artificial intelligence.
This rise of AI has driven a surge in construction of chip-dense warehouses that need vast amounts of electricity; some of that demand is being met by burning fossil gas.
Having access to site-level emissions and efficiency numbers is key if we want to judge how much extra fossil fuel the datacentre build-out uses and whether operators meet their efficiency promises. By closing off site-level figures, the new rule narrows the ability of academics, campaigners and local communities to assess actual environmental impacts.
Investigation files include an internal commission email reminding national authorities to refuse media and public requests for datacentre information, and citing the secrecy clause as the legal basis for those refusals. The email noted that the commission had already received multiple requests and that "all these requests have been so far refused."
Legal and political alarm
Some legal experts say a blanket confidentiality rule may clash with EU transparency laws and international agreements that require access to environmental information. Professor Jerzy Jendrośka, a professor of environmental law at the University of Opole who spent 19 years on the body overseeing the Aarhus convention, said he had not seen a comparable case in two decades. "This clearly seems not to be in line with the convention," he said.
The Aarhus convention, to which the EU is party, obliges public authorities to provide access to environmental information held by them. A broad confidentiality rule covering all individual datacentre metrics could come into conflict with those obligations, lawyers warn, and could trigger legal challenges by non-governmental organisations or civil society groups.
Brussels framed the update to the energy efficiency regime as a way to improve reporting and enable monitoring. The 2023 directive obliged datacentre operators to collect and submit key performance indicators. But the guidance that followed proposed that the commission publish "aggregated" metrics — a distinction that industry lobbyists turned into a demand for full secrecy on site-level data.
Industry rationale and counter-arguments
Companies told the Commission that revealing site-level energy and performance metrics would expose commercial information and harm competition. They argued that revealing performance at the level of a single facility could harm competition by exposing operational details to rivals, and could undermine commercial bargains with energy suppliers.
Critics say those concerns are overstated and that a balance could have been struck that preserved legitimate commercial secrets while allowing public scrutiny of environmental impacts. Aggregated figures can mask wide variation between sites; a poorly performing datacentre in one locality may be hidden by strong performance elsewhere in the same member state.
This lack of transparency has real local effects. Datacentres consume large volumes of power and can strain local electricity grids and supply chains. They can also create noise, traffic and other planning issues for host communities. Without access to site-level data, local authorities and residents have less information to challenge planning decisions or press for stricter environmental conditions.
Economic and geopolitical stakes
For Europe, the rule forces a hard trade-off between courting datacentre investment and keeping the rollout open to public scrutiny. Policymakers have been eager to attract cloud providers and chip-heavy facilities because they promise jobs, investment and digital sovereignty in a world dominated by US and Chinese firms. The EU's drive to expand datacentre capacity is part of a broader bid to host AI infrastructure domestically.
Yet the same push risks locking in higher greenhouse-gas emissions if new capacity runs on fossil gas. That, in turn, could make the EU's own climate targets and its credibility when it pressures others to cut emissions. The secrecy clause reduces the information available to regulators who might otherwise steer the rollout toward lower-carbon solutions.
For the UK, the immediate legal reach of the EU rule is limited since the UK is no longer an EU member. But the practical effects will still be felt. British researchers and NGOs that study datacentre impacts across Europe will face the same limits when analysing facilities inside EU member states. Companies operating cross-border infrastructures may apply similar confidentiality standards in the UK, citing precedent set by Brussels to justify nondisclosure.
There are also commercial implications for UK cities competing to host datacentres. Investors and local officials weigh energy costs, grid capacity and reputational risk when choosing sites. Less transparency in Europe could shift investor calculations and make comparisons harder to make.
What comes next
Legal challenges are likely. Advocates for transparency are already pointing to the Aarhus convention and to EU rules on environmental information. Courts or international bodies could be asked to examine whether the commission's confidentiality regime is compatible with both EU law and treaty obligations.
At the political level, the secrecy provision could become a flashpoint in debates over the EU's industrial policy. Lawmakers who favour tougher environmental oversight may seek to reopen the question in Brussels. Industry groups will defend the clause as necessary to protect trade secrets and to preserve the competitiveness of European operations run by global firms.
For communities and researchers, the immediate consequence is a thinner evidence base. National summaries can show broad trends. They can't tell which facilities are running less efficiently, or whether particular operators are relying more heavily on fossil fuels.
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"In two decades, I can't recall a comparable case," said Professor Jerzy Jendrośka, former member of the Aarhus convention oversight body.
This article was created with AI assistance.
