UK data centres on track to outpace ExxonMobil's carbon outp

Two data centres under development will each emit 4.5 million tonnes of carbon annually at full capacity, according to analysis by Foxglove, a non-profit organisation. That combined output exceeds ExxonMobil's entire UK operations – a stark illustration of how infrastructure decisions made today lock in emissions decades ahead.

The data centres in question are positioned as serving AI and cloud computing demand. Neither figure appears in publicly available climate commitments from the operators, raising questions about what emissions are being omitted from corporate net-zero pledges.

This matters because data centre emissions are often buried in Scope 2 figures (purchased electricity) or simply not disclosed at granular level. If the hosting companies claim carbon neutrality or net-zero status without accounting for the full energy footprint of their infrastructure partners, they're banking on offsetting or renewable energy purchases to do the work – not on reducing actual demand.

Foxglove's analysis exposes a common gap: operators can sign power purchase agreements for renewable energy, report that as decarbonised electricity, and simultaneously ignore the marginal emissions from grid demand spikes. The carbon is real. The accounting is not.

This raises a harder question for procurement teams and sustainability leads: when evaluating cloud or data centre vendors, are you asking for end-to-end emissions accounting, or accepting whatever the vendor's own Scope 1+2 calculation permits them to hide?

Two data centres set to emit more than ExxonMobil’s UK operations, analysis warns

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