How data centers can earn their place in the communities they serve

The global data center market is surging, driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing demand that shows no sign of slowing. But the communities and governments that host these facilities are increasingly asking what they get in return.

In the United States, at least$156 billion across 48 data center projects was reportedly blocked or stalled by local opposition in 2025. According to Data Center Watch, at least 75 projects worth $130 billion were blocked in the first quarter of 2026. Across the country, 19 states either have moratoriums or have advanced legislation to restrict building new data centers.

At issue is the resources that data centers consume, including water, and the pressure has intensified in Europe, too. Amsterdam has prohibited data center expansions that lack demonstrable heat reuse and low-water use designs since a 2019 ruling. Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act now requires data centers to reuse unavoidable waste heat. The European Commission is preparing a Data Centre Energy Efficiency Package for mid-2026 that will introduce performance ratings and lay the groundwork for minimum efficiency standards, including water use.

Communities and regulators across the globe want data centers to contribute to local resource security, not just consume from it. With the right approach, that’s possible — and some operators are already proving it.

Recycled water is gaining ground, but treatment is the bottleneck

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has expanded recycled water use to more than 120 data centers and invested over $1 billion in water infrastructure, a move expected to save 530 million gallons of fresh water per year. It is working with Veolia to develop reclaimed water for data center cooling systems, a project expected to reuse more than 83 million gallons of potable water per year once fully operational. The project will leverage Veolia’s autonomous, containerized treatment systems to produce industrial-quality cooling water from effluent from nearby wastewater treatment plants.

In Northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest data center cluster, Loudoun Water’s recycled water pipeline served 736 million gallons to data center operators in 2024 at less than half the cost of drinking water. And in mid-April, the EPA launched Water Reuse Action Plan 2.0, which specifically identifies data centers as a priority sector for water reuse.

The direction is clear, but there’s a practical gap. Municipal wastewater requires further treatment before it meets the quality standards for cooling system intake, and most data center operators are not water treatment specialists.

Partnerships between operators and water treatment providers have become essential for water security. At AWS’ first new data center campus in Mississippi, the company is working with Veolia to treat municipal wastewater so the facility can switch entirely to recycled water by 2027. The treatment infrastructure will be just outside the data center fence line, so it can eventually serve other users in the community, turning a single facility’s water solution into shared local infrastructure.

When data centers give back to their communities

Water reuse addresses one resource stream, but the strongest responses to community concerns are more comprehensive. Data centers generate massive amounts of waste heat, consume significant energy and produce electronic waste and spent cooling chemicals. Each of those streams represents either a burden on local resources or a potential benefit to local communities, depending on how they’re managed.

Several European governments are already pushing operators in this direction. Germany’s waste heat reuse mandate and Amsterdam’s requirement that new facilities demonstrate heat reuse and low-water designs both reflect the expectation that data centers should give back to local resource systems.

Veolia’s Data Center Resource 360 program is designed around this principle. The integrated approach covers water treatment and reuse, waste heat recovery for district heating and e-waste and cooling chemical recycling — targeting up to 75% reduction in water footprint, up to 20% energy reuse efficiency and 95% waste recycling and reuse across a facility’s operations. These efforts align with Veolia’s GreenUp strategy to shape a more sustainable world for future generations.

The approach is already producing results. Near Cambridge, United Kingdom, Veolia has been selected by the Wellcome Genome Campus to design and build a fifth-generation heating and cooling network that will recover geothermal heat alongside waste heat from a data center facility. Rather than venting thermal energy into the atmosphere, the system channels it into the local district heating network, a tangible benefit that changes how the surrounding community perceives the facility.

Building the case for community acceptance

The opposition movement is not slowing down. Reportedly, 188 local groups now operate across 40 U.S. states, and project cancellations grew from two in 2023 to 25 in 2025. In Europe, a poll across five countries found that a majority of respondents want regulations limiting data centers’ impact on energy, water and consumer costs. The EU’s planned Cloud and AI Development Act aims to triple data center processing capacity in five to seven years but will require compliance with energy efficiency, water efficiency and circularity standards.

Operators who can demonstrate measurable resource returns to local communities — like cheaper heating from recovered waste heat, reduced pressure on drinking water supplies and local jobs in treatment and recycling infrastructure — are better positioned to clear permitting and maintain long-term community support.

Veolia is already active alongside the 10 leading global data center operators on more than 100 facilities worldwide. Contact our experts today to develop a water and resource management strategy that supports both your data center’s performance and the community around it.