- Google is accused of destroying 300 hectares of forest for a data center
- Microsoft’s data center plans are ‘lipstick on a pig,’ a critic argues
- Some residents are pushing back against further data center plans
Big Tech firms like to tout their environmental credentials, positioning themselves as responsible stewards of the planet’s welfare. Yet you’d be forgiven for viewing those claims more than a little skeptically in the artificial intelligence (AI) era — after all, a slew of recent reports have suggested that such environmental posturing has a bad habit of withering away when there is money to be made.
Google, for example — whose sustainability web page is emblazoned with the headline “Making AI helpful for everyone, including the planet” — has been accused of destroying 300 hectares of Finnish forest (equivalent to roughly 500 football fields) to clear space for an AI data center before an environmental-impact assessment was finished.
Hanna Halmeenpää, chair of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, told the AFP news site that, based on satellite images, “we’ve seen that nature sites which should be preserved have also been logged.”
And Google isn’t the only Big Tech firm in hot water. Microsoft’s efforts to blend its data centers into the local area by restoring wetlands and gardens have met with criticism from those who say they merely disguise the data centers’ negative effects.
For example, Adrian Shelley, Texas director at nonprofit body Public Citizen, called Microsoft’s plan “basically lipstick on a pig.” Shelley also noted that the data centers would be powered by nearby pollution-heavy gas plants, adding: “I cannot really see any level of biomimicry investment that makes a gas plant a desirable neighbor.” Even Microsoft’s own estimates said its emissions were up 25% in 2025, “driven primarily by the expansion of our datacenter infrastructure.”
The AI pushback
Perhaps these cases of Big Tech firms finding themselves curiously unbothered by environmental matters should not come as too much of a surprise. After all, the likes of Google and Microsoft are publicly traded companies that are beholden to their shareholders above all.
Many citizens are pushing back against the AI gold rush and its attendant data center expansion. In Texas, for example, Taylor resident Pamela Griffin is fighting plans to turn a plot of land near her home into a data center, arguing that a 1999 deed reserved the space to be used as parkland — something she says has not been honored.
Clashes like this are becoming increasingly common as local residents are resisting attempts to turn land over to AI usage, citing noise pollution and environmental degradation, among other concerns.
And as long as Big Tech companies feel there are fresh riches to be made from AI, that’s likely to continue.
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