SOURCE-LINKED INTELLIGENCE

Beyond PUE: A Local Impact Audit Framework for Data Center Environmental Accountability

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 20, 2026 · UTC

Standard data center sustainability metrics, including Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), and Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE), measure a facility's resource use and emissions intensity, normalized to IT energy use, without directly representing local resource scarcity, infrastructure capacity, or social footprint. This gap has become politically consequential. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, local opposition delayed or canceled roughly $130 billion in projects across the United States, driven overwhelmingly by recurring concerns over water use, power demand,

Read original source ↗ Open in workspace

recordType

paper

region

Global