A Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.
“Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland.
But Scotland appears to have no clear definition of what a “green datacentre” is. This means that current AI developments might call themselves “green” while their impact on the climate are ignored, according to Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), an Edinburgh-based charity.
The Green MSP Ariane Burgess, representing Highlands and Islands, said: “We urgently need transparency around what constitutes a ‘green datacentre’ and how their huge energy demands will be accommodated by our grid infrastructure.
“So far, the answers we’ve been getting out of the Scottish government have not provided any clarity,” she said.
More than a dozen datacentres in Scotland are in the process of getting planning permission, including an AI growth zone in Lanarkshire, near Glasgow, which claims to be backed by £8.2bn in private investment.
Collectively, they stand to use roughly 6.2GW of power – one-and-a-half times more than the peak power use of all of Scotland in the winter.
In April, Fintan Slye, the chief executive of the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso), encouraged datacentre developers to build in Scotland, where they could take advantage of its greater proportion of renewable energy, with fewer grid constraints. “If in the audience you have a big datacentre and you want to go to Scotland, please come talk to me, we will help you,” Slye said to a conference in London, reported by the Financial Times.
Originally written by: Aisha Down
Image credit: Yui Mok/PA
Source: The Guardian
Published on: 25 May 2026
Link to original article: Scotland’s ‘green datacentres’ policy ignores emissions impact of AI, analysis shows
