Data Centre Signals: Two UK Sites Now Out-Emit ExxonMobil UK

Hey, thanks so much for listening. I would love to be able to help you more on what it is that you are listening to and why you're listening to, to me. If you could click on the link in the show notes, that would be awesome because it will help me define what it is that we should be talking about on this podcast. Before we start, One number this week stopped me. 2 planned English data centers, once they are running on their own gas power, would emit around 4.5 million tons of carbon a year. That is more than ExxonMobil's entire UK operations. The water story behind those same buildings is stranger still. So stay with me for that one at the end. This week in sustainability, here are your top 10 stories ranked by what the world is talking about most. Number 10: Recycled packaging progress stalls. For food and beverage brands, recycled content is now a tax position as much as a packaging decision. HMRC data shows 37% of UK plastic packaging still falls short of the 30% Recycled content threshold. And plastic packaging tax revenue has fallen 4% to £250 million, a 3rd consecutive annual decline. In the same week, a single story of volunteer coastal cleanup logged almost 13.9 million items across more than 15,000 miles of coastline, with plastic bottles the most recorded item of all. Number 9: Circular design turns into product engineering. For consumer and media brands, circularity is moving out of the campaign and into the specification. Arc'teryx launched System Zero, a framework that designs a jacket for repair and eventual disassembly. With its recycled nylon face fabric going back to the supplier for reprocessing. Kering has 10 designers working in its material innovation lab. Lenovo is going after its channel partners who carry around half its emissions and 80% of its revenue. Number 8: Nature starts appearing on the balance sheet. For organizations above £100 million turnover, natural capital is beginning to shape sourcing, land, and capital decisions. Velux and WWF completed a 20-year forest program covering roughly 450,000 hectares across Uganda, Vietnam, and now Madagascar. A study in Nature Ecology and Evolution found that 44 to 49% of projected global nickel demand to 2050 could be met from the world's most biodiverse, carbon-rich areas. The valuation question is no longer academic. Number 7: Pollution data gets sharper and more uncomfortable. For any organisation with UK sites, discharges, or abstraction, the assurance quality of your environmental data is the story. Pilot data from a Thames Water drought scheme showed the PFAS chemical PFOS at 13 times the legal limit, in contrast to the company's public assurances. The UK also launched a public air pollution alert service tracking 5 pollutants against roughly 40,000 premature deaths a year. And live sewage spill data. It turns out records duration but not volume, dilution, or ecological harm. Number 6: Scope 3 flexibility arrives and companies are already using it. For food and beverage businesses with large agricultural footprints, the new Science-Based Targets initiative rules change what your Scope 3 number can look like. PepsiCo used environmental attribute certificates and other market instruments to reduce its reported forest, land, and agricultural and energy Scope 3 emissions by nearly 840,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents in its latest climate accounting statement. Same physical supply chain, different reported figure. Boards will start asking which lever actually moved. Number five, reporting rules pull in opposite directions. For listed companies, your disclosure perimeter now depends on where you are listed, who audits you, and which jurisdiction blinks first. ISSB adoption reaches 35 jurisdictions through Brazil moved. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Though Brazil moved to comp. Comply or Explain in the same quarter. South Korea widens mandatory scope. The UK sustainability reporting standards are heading for an FCA policy statement this autumn. The US government also pressed the EU to scale back the CSDDD and CSRD. And 16 Republican attorneys general warn the Big Four over climate disclosures work. This regulatory tug-of-war has been in the countdown for several weeks now. Number 4: Energy costs became a strategy problem, not a bill. For energy-intensive food processing and manufacturing, this is now a procurement and CapEx decision rather than a line item. UK business electricity costs are up 25% since February. And nearly 90% of business energy consumption gets no support on, on policy costs. Across the Channel, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Spain absorbed almost €41 billion in extra fossil fuel import costs from the Hormuz price shock. While clean power installed since 2020 saved the bloc an estimated €36 billion over the same period. The hedge and the decarbonisation plan are now the same documents. Number 3: Solar and storage became the resilience play. For sites that cannot stop production, studios that cannot drop a shoot, and depots that cannot lose cold chain, on-site generation is now about continuity. Spain's battery storage capacity has risen almost sevenfold in a year as Iberian businesses protect themselves against another blackout. New Spitalfields Market in East London fitted 2,730 panels across 5 roofs, a 1.4 megawatt array expected to generate 1.27 gigawatts an hour a year and cut around 225 tonnes of emissions. Plug-in balcony solar also went on sale in Britain for the first time at up to £110 a year in household savings. Number 2: Heat adaptation moves into the budget. For anyone with premises, kitchens, track, or fleet, adaptation has become CapEx rather than contingency. A Barclays survey found 37% of UK businesses have already invested in adapting to extreme heat, with a further 27% considering it. Italy hit its 5th heatwave of the summer with temperatures above 44 degrees centigrade, and June and July combined were Western Europe's hottest on record. Professional kitchens are switching gas burners for induction and reporting kitchen temperatures down by up to 10 degrees centigrade. Heat has been in this countdown for weeks. What changed this week is that the money started moving. Number 1, AI data centers collide with the grid, the water table, and the public. For media marketing and advertising, AI now sits inside your Scope 2, your Scope 3, and your license to operate. 2 planned English data centers would together emit around 4.5 million tonnes of carbon a year running on their own gas-fired station. More than ExxonMobil's whole UK operation, largely because grid connection delays pushed them to generate on-site. Spain has proposed making grid access conditional on matching 80% of consumption with new renewable generation every hour. And 63% of US adults now say they would oppose data centres being built in their community. This has topped the countdown for 3 weeks and it is getting more and more political, not less. And now on to the top 3 mind-blowing environmental facts from this week. Number 1: 2 planned English data centres would emit more carbon a year than ExxonMobil's entire UK operations. Around 4.5 million tonnes against 3.9 million. Number 2, the biggest water footprint of an AI data center is not the cooling on site. It is the power stations behind it. Thermal generation accounts for 3 to 4 trillion gallons of water withdrawals across just 7 major US data center states. And number 3, during Europe's record heat this summer, solar was the only major power source that performed better than normal, producing 17% more than usual. While nuclear, gas, and coal all cut output because cooling water ran short. If you want to be a part of our network, please DM me or comment below.

Grab free access to Will's Substack while it lasts. Every week we pull together the top sustainability stories from dozens of trusted sources. Then he breaks down The big issues facing business right now in plain, practical terms. Link in the description.