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Proposed London datacentre will have annual carbon footprint of 27,000 flights to New York

Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in North Ockendon would be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in North Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres

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Ledger record
#1422
First seen
21 Aug 2026, 10:19 UTC
Last checked
21 Aug 2026, 14:35 UTC
Version history
3 versions
Current fingerprint
79d041a61477...4cd2e1
01

Publisher layer

Recorded article metadata

Publisher
The Guardian
Country
England / United Kingdom
Source published
21 Aug 2026, 10:00 UTC
Source updated
No update timestamp supplied
Byline
Matthew Pearce
Section
Datacentres - UK
Source-supplied excerpt
Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in North Ockendon would be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in North Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres
02

Change layer

Observed version timeline

  1. 3
    Revision observed

    Proposed London datacentre will have annual carbon footprint of 27,000 flights to New York

    Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in North Ockendon would be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in North Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres

    Changed fieldsdescriptionTextcontentText
    Version SHA-256
    79d041a61477...4cd2e1
    Capture SHA-256
    2d97624a6fcc...824498
  2. 2
    Revision observed

    Proposed London datacentre will have annual carbon footprint of 27,000 flights to New York

    Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in north Ockendon will be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in north Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres i

    Changed fieldstags
    Version SHA-256
    32fd2aad9b6d...9853a8
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    8f62dbc3e9dd...4a2377
  3. 1
    Initial capture

    Proposed London datacentre will have annual carbon footprint of 27,000 flights to New York

    Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in north Ockendon will be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in north Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres i

    Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags
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    c8e6f993e35a...28406b
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Interpretation layer

Labels with declared origins

Not an adjudication.

Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.

  • machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
  • publisher category AI (artificial intelligence) rss-category
  • publisher category Carbon footprints rss-category
  • publisher category Climate crisis rss-category
  • publisher category Datacentres - UK rss-category
  • publisher category Environment rss-category
  • publisher category Greenhouse gas emissions rss-category
  • publisher category London rss-category
  • publisher category Politics rss-category
  • publisher category Pollution rss-category
  • publisher category Technology rss-category
  • publisher category UK news rss-category
04

Public response layer

Reception snapshots

No reviewed reception capture yet.

Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.

05

Evidence layer

Capture provenance

Capture ID
#813
Observed
21 Aug 2026, 10:49 UTC
HTTP result
200 / parsed
Raw payload
459,929 bytes, private gzip evidence
Collector
news-ledger/0.1
Public boundary
metadata and excerpt