Invisible costs and cloud ruins: An integrated impact assessment framework for large-scale data centres

The rapid expansion of large-scale data centres is generating growing local opposition, with direct consequences for infrastructure planning and permitting. In the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars in projects have been blocked or delayed in recent years; similar conflicts are now emerging across Europe, where proximity to residential areas, protected landscapes, predominantly agricultural rural areas, and heritage constraints intensify siting disputes. This paper argues that these conflicts stem from a structural flaw in current impact assessment practice: its near-exclusive reliance on economic multiplier analysis, which quantifies aggregate employment and fiscal benefits while systematically ignoring the locally concentrated costs borne by host communities. We further show that the risk of infrastructural obsolescence and abrupt abandonment means that even these commonly cited benefits should be treated as uncertain rather than guaranteed. Drawing on recent evidence, the paper documents the material bases of community concern across several dimensions such energy consumption and carbon intensity, water use, noise, and a range of social and structural risks. Building on this analysis, we propose a preliminary impact assessment framework designed to support informed public participation, reduce conflict and litigation risk, and enable siting decisions that more accurately reflect the full spectrum of local costs and benefits associated with data centre development.