40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development

Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated. It’s their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably—and not at the expense of their cities’ natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week. Many new data centers are coming to rural areas for cheap land. Experts at C40 say metropolitan areas are under tremendous pressure too, with about 1,700 data centers located in their network of cities so far. Development of data centers is expected to grow by over 40 percent in 50 of those cities. C40 got involved because the mayors of Phoenix (AZ) and Melbourne, Australia, came together over worries about data centers using a lot of their cities’ electricity and water, and competing with housing developers for available land.