A Guide to Data Center Sustainability: Trends, Challenges, and Engineering Solutions

Data centers are the backbone of modern connectivity, powering everything from cloud computing to AI. Yet as these facilities scale to meet increased demand, so does their environmental impact.

Sustainability has become a core focus for both developers and stakeholders. Energy use, water consumption, land degradation, and carbon emissions are now critical benchmarks for both performance and risk. 

To achieve sustainability at scale, developers are turning to engineering and environmental consultants for strategic guidance throughout the project lifecycle. From site selection and permitting to stormwater and low-carbon design, they help guide data center projects toward outcomes that benefit both business and the planet.

Key takeaways

• Data center sustainability is essential to balancing digital infrastructure growth with environmental responsibility.
• Developers face rising pressure from regulators, investors, and communities to minimize energy, water, carbon, and land impacts.
• Common challenges include high energy demands, cooling-related water use, and embodied carbon in construction materials.
• Sustainable design strategies (like smart site selection, renewable energy integration, low-impact civil engineering design, and native landscapes) help reduce long-term environmental impact.
• Partnering early with engineering and environmental consultants like Langan enables sustainable  outcomes and smoother project delivery.

What is data center sustainability?

Data center sustainability is the practice of designing, building, and operating data centers to minimize environmental harm while maintaining efficient performance and reliability over time. The most critical core pillars of data center sustainability include:

• Energy efficiency: Minimizing electricity consumption while integrating renewable energy sources.
• Water management: Reducing water usage, particularly for cooling, and implementing reuse and recycling strategies to minimize discharge.
• Carbon reduction: Limiting both operational and embodied carbon emissions.
• Material stewardship: Choosing sustainable, low-impact materials for construction and maintenance.
• Biodiversity protection: Avoiding disruption of natural habitats and restoring ecosystems.
• Community engagement: Considering impacts on surrounding populations, including traffic, noise, and infrastructure demands.

These principles shape how sustainable data centers are built and evaluated, ensuring alignment with evolving environmental goals and the expectations of investors, customers, and communities.

Why is data center sustainability a growing priority? 

As demand for data centers grows, so do concerns about the strain they place on energy systems and local environments. Developers face rising expectations that demand meaningful action, putting sustainability at the forefront of every project.

Energy and climate pressures

Data centers are inherently energy-intensive, accounting for approximately 2% of global electricity use — a figure expected to rise sharply with the adoption of AI and high-performance computing. As companies pursue net-zero targets and governments enact climate policies, energy efficiency and emissions reduction are becoming regulatory obligations and brand differentiators.

Regulatory and building standards

Governments are tightening regulations that affect how data centers are built and operated. In the EU, developers must meet specific requirements around energy performance, carbon emissions, and resource use to secure permits and maintain compliance. 

In the U.S., while there are no overarching federal mandates, state-level policies are increasingly requiring developers to address efficiency and environmental impact in their designs. 

Investor and customer expectations

Institutional investors and enterprise clients are increasingly demanding sustainable operations from their partners. Data centers that demonstrate measurable sustainability performance stand to attract more funding and business.

Community scrutiny and permitting considerations

Proposed data centers often face pushback from local communities concerned about noise, water use, heat island effects, and infrastructure strain. Sustainable design can address these concerns head-on, helping developers secure faster approvals and long-term community support.

Top challenges to achieving sustainable data centers

Building greener data centers isn’t as simple as adopting a few eco-friendly upgrades. Developers must navigate a range of factors — from energy intensity and water use to land disruption and supply chain emissions — all while striving to minimize long-term environmental impact.

Energy consumption and carbon footprint

Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, often operating continuously without interruption. This constant energy draw not only strains local grids but also results in significant carbon emissions, especially in regions where fossil fuels still dominate the energy mix. While advances in efficiency exist, retrofitting aging facilities or sourcing clean energy at scale can be costly and logistically complex.

Water scarcity and cooling demands

Keeping servers at optimal temperatures requires intensive cooling, and many systems still depend heavily on water. In regions already facing water scarcity, this dependence creates tension between infrastructure needs and environmental limits. 

Land use, biodiversity, and local ecosystems

Developers of large-scale data centers often clear land and reshape natural landscapes. Without careful site selection, they can fragment ecosystems, destroy wildlife habitats, and degrade soil health. Even with mitigation efforts, poorly planned development often leaves ecological damage that lasts for decades.

Community impacts

Even when technically sound, data centers can spark local opposition. Residents may experience increased traffic, elevated noise levels, and visual changes that disrupt the character of their neighborhoods. Projects that overlook community sentiment or fail to engage stakeholders early often face delays, legal battles, or outright rejection.

Supply chain and embodied carbon in construction

Construction materials and global supply chains contribute significantly to a data center’s embodied carbon footprint. High-impact inputs, such as steel, glass, and concrete, generate emissions well before a facility comes online. Limited transparency and inconsistent standards make it difficult for developers to assess and address these impacts effectively, even as public awareness grows.

Key strategies for designing and building more sustainable data centers

Meeting these challenges requires more than good intentions — it takes early planning and targeted strategies across every phase of development. By integrating smart design principles and resilient infrastructure early on, project teams can significantly reduce long-term resource demands and environmental impact.

1. Smarter site selection

The location of a data center plays a critical role in determining its sustainability. Early-stage due diligence should account for environmental stressors like water scarcity, flood risk, and heat vulnerability, as well as the presence of ecologically sensitive areas. 

Prioritizing brownfields or redevelopment sites can help reduce sprawl, utilize existing infrastructure, and minimize disruption to undisturbed land. This approach also positions projects more favorably with permitting authorities and nearby communities, who are increasingly concerned with the cumulative impact of new development.

2. Renewable and efficient energy

A strong sustainability strategy starts with how a data center sources and uses power. A project can reduce reliance on fossil fuels by incorporating on-site renewables, such as solar arrays, as well as off-site solutions through power purchase agreements. 

At the same time, designing for energy efficiency — through optimized MEP systems, thoughtful architectural layout, and innovative operational controls — can significantly lower total consumption. Facilities that incorporate grid-interactive features and demand-response capabilities also enhance broader energy resilience by adjusting usage in real time based on utility needs.

3. Water stewardship

Water-efficient cooling technologies, such as closed-loop or air-cooled systems, help reduce dependence on municipal supplies and are especially valuable in drought-prone regions. 

Effective stormwater management practices, including detention or retention basins and bioswales, limits runoff and helps mitigate impacts to local ground and surface water sources. Taken together, these strategies protect resources while supporting long-term reliability.

4. Low-impact site and civil design

Civil engineering and landscape design have a direct influence on how a data center interacts with its surrounding environment. Strategies that reduce impervious surface area, like permeable pavements or green roofs, can help manage runoff and minimize heat island effects. 

Bioswales, rain gardens, and restored native landscapes offer both functional and ecological value, filtering pollutants and enhancing biodiversity. These design choices also support stormwater compliance, a growing concern for local governments and environmental agencies. 

5. Reducing embodied carbon 

The extraction, production, and transportation of construction materials contribute significantly to a data center’s embodied carbon footprint. Choosing alternative materials such as recycled steel, low-carbon concrete, or mass timber can substantially reduce these emissions upfront. 

Additionally, modular and adaptable building designs extend a facility’s lifespan and make future upgrades less resource-intensive by reducing the need for structural overhauls, minimizing material waste, and lowering the embodied carbon associated with renovations.

Emerging trends in data center sustainability

With sustainability becoming standard practice, many developers are now exploring advanced technologies and new operating models that go beyond compliance. These emerging trends reflect a shift toward innovation, long-term resilience, and deeper collaboration across the industry.

• Net-zero and climate-positive goals: Some operators now aim not only for neutrality, but for climate-positive outcomes that restore ecosystems and sequester carbon.
• Advanced cooling technologies: Liquid cooling and immersion cooling are emerging as more efficient alternatives and often operate in closed-loop configurations that circulate water-based or dielectric fluids, minimizing water use.
• Circular economy models: Companies are embracing waste reduction, asset reuse, and recycling to close material loops.
• AI-driven optimization: Machine learning is being used to continuously improve cooling, airflow, and power management in real time.
• Collaborative development models: Developers are forming coalitions with utilities, communities, and designers to ensure responsible and sustainable builds.

The role of environmental and engineering consultants in driving data center sustainability

Executing data center sustainability strategies effectively takes expert input from the start. Early collaboration with firms like Langan enables you to embed sustainability goals into site planning, permitting strategy, and design, rather than retrofitting them later at a greater cost and complexity.

Langan’s multidisciplinary teams bring together civil and site engineering, geotechnical investigations and engineering, environmental permitting, landscape architecture, and cultural and traffic planning to streamline decisions and ensure compliance across regulatory areas. For example, at the Vantage Data Centers WA1 Campus in Washington, Langan’s early involvement helped deliver a 775,000-square-foot, LEED Gold-certified facility designed for long-term resilience and efficient below-grade utility routing.

With the proper technical support early on, developers are better positioned to meet performance targets while staying aligned with sustainability benchmarks.

Reaching data center sustainability with Langan

As demand for digital infrastructure continues to rise, the pressure to develop responsibly intensifies. Sustainability has become a core expectation, one that requires both strategic commitment and technical expertise.

Langan helps clients meet that challenge by integrating environmental insight into every stage of development. From early planning through final buildout, our teams work to align performance needs with long-term impact. This means anticipating regulatory challenges , designing more innovative solutions, and finding practical ways to reduce resource consumption.

Ready to develop smarter, more sustainable data centers? Contact us with general questions to get started today.

Connect with Langan’s data center experts
And for further guidance on sustainable data center development, reach out to our specialists:

Christopher Hager, PE, LEED AP – Managing Principal
chager@langan.com | ☎ 201.403.5083

Paul Manzer, PE – Senior Principal
pmanzer@langan.com | ☎ 425.941.1190