40 Mayors Sign Pact Setting Standards for Urban Data Centers

Forty mayors signed a pact Tuesday that sets standards for how data centers are sited and operated inside cities. The agreement was launched by C40 Cities during London Climate Action Week. Signatories include cities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

The document calls for data centers to be built on abandoned or underutilized land, to draw power from renewable sources paired with battery storage, and to cut water use and emissions while capturing waste heat. It also requires projects to create local jobs, purchase local goods and services, fund their own infrastructure upgrades and respond to community input.

About half the signatories are U.S. cities, including Seattle, Palo Alto, Riverside, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Beverly, Lincoln, Chicago, Cleveland and Miami. European participants include cities in Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and Norway.

Montreal, several African cities, two Indian cities, Melbourne and one Lebanese city also joined.

Cities said roughly 1,700 data centers already operate inside its member cities and that development is projected to rise more than 40 percent in 50 of those cities. The group became involved after the mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne raised concerns about electricity and water demand plus competition for land with housing projects.

A managing director at C40 Cities stated that similar challenges exist across regions and that the pact gives mayors a collective set of conditions under which they will accept new facilities.

Phoenix has pending permit applications that would double the metropolitan area’s electricity demand if all are approved. Melbourne estimates that full build-out of planned centers would consume up to 20 billion liters of water annually, equal to about 4 percent of its drinking supply.