Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres

The Scottish government announced that new datacentres above 50MW must submit environmental impact assessments during the planning process, stopping short of an outright moratorium ahead of a Holyrood vote on Wednesday. The rule change responds to growing public concern about the impact of the AI boom on Scotland.

Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres By Patrick GreenfieldSource: The Guardian Technology https://www.theguardian.com/us/technology Government announces before vote on moratorium that any projects above 50MW must submit assessments in planning process 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. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/16/datacentres-scotland-environmental-assessments-ai-boom Get AI news in your inbox Daily digest of what matters in AI.