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Helping make informed planning decisions

Our recent report, Data Centre Society, drew on industry and sociology expert insights that highlighted opportunities for data centres to bring more community benefits while still retaining commercial viability. The report posited that data centres could be more socially integrated into local communities creating aggregated benefits, creating equality, jobs and community. However, to date, there has been no agreed blueprint on what a socially conscious, community data centre looks like.

Our Societal Insights team has developed a Social Charter to unlock these benefits. It has six principles that industry partners and Local Authorities can work on collectively. Each principle builds on that last, increasing the degree to which they enable social justice and social value in the process of data centre design, planning and construction.

The principles are:

 

Each community is different, so each of the guiding principles in this charter seek to set a new social contract that can be adapted to the unique characteristics of each development.
These principles for engagement can be used by Local Authorities and developers to facilitate community-led master planning. There will be better outcomes if communities are stakeholders in data centres, resulting in developments that are de-risked with a shorter timeline to delivery, as well as the potential for further growth of assets.

This charter was developed by Anna Fredlander, Paul Hanna, Charlotte Knowles, Ruby Slade and Carl Walker from our Societal Insights team.

View the Social Charter now.