In a new report, the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter said business as usual on data centers is unsustainable.
Lead author and researcher Ann Bennett used publicly available data on existing facilities, as well as those under construction or proposed to be built. She said that wasn’t an easy task because data was not available for all facilities due to a lack of transparency from developers and state and local governments.
The Sierra Club’s estimate of total data center square footage either built or in the development pipeline is roughly 390,000,000 square feet, split among 1,295 facilities.
“Most of the data center buildout has yet to occur, and unfettered or unconstrained growth is no longer really an option,” Bennett said. “Even with this massive expansion, almost no impactful regulation has been implemented at the state or local levels.”
Data centers bring tax revenue to localities, but Bennett said the lack of transparency makes it hard to figure out the true impact of the industry on water supplies, the electric grid and land use.
In Northern Virginia, where data centers are more concentrated than anywhere else on the planet, development has begun to encroach on residential areas.
Tyler Ray, a Fairfax resident and organizer with Save Bren Mar, said a planned data center development and its associated power infrastructure — transmission lines and a substation — have already reduced home values in the area. And getting organized to advocate at the local level was complicated by the fact that information was hard to come by.
“When this data center was initially proposed, the developer refused to even acknowledge to the community, the county or the local planning commission that their project would be a data center. It was only discovered through county records,” Ray said.
Data center developers like Meta and Amazon have invested in clean energy in Virginia and have net zero goals — aiming to reduce as many greenhouse gas emissions as they create. Bennett said their investment doesn’t come close to covering their actual energy usage, and argued the state should either end tax exemptions for data centers or make them conditional on renewable energy development.
The report found that data center demand growth will threaten Dominion Energy’s ability to meet net zero goals set by the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Meanwhile, the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, which isn’t bound by the VCEA, is set to surpass Dominion’s data center load demand in its service area within two years.
The Sierra Club isn’t opposed to data center development, but argues environmental protections, transparency requirements and better infrastructure planning are needed to protect Virginians from the rapidly growing industry.
Bennett said action is needed from the state and from localities, and pointed to Henrico County as an example of a locality setting limits on development. Other counties, like Albemarle, are looking into setting their own standards.
Regulations have been proposed at the state level. A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a raft of related bills during the 2025 General Assembly session, covering everything from reporting requirements at the local level to cost protections for consumers statewide. Only one passed — it was vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“We had an expectation that the governor and the General Assembly would be concerned enough to take some serious and thoughtful action at the state level, at least, and it was certainly hard to believe that they chose not to,” Bennett said.
