Google’s huge new Essex datacentre to emit 570,000 tonnes of CO2 a year
A new Google datacentre in Essex is expected to emit more than half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to about 500 short-haul flights a week, planning documents show.Spread across 52 hectares (128 acres), the Thurrock “hyperscale datacentre” will be part of a wave of mammoth computer and AI power houses if it secures planning consent.The plans were submitted by a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and the carbon impact emerged before a concerted push by Donald Trump’s White House and Downing Street to ramp up AI capacity in Britain.Multibillion-dollar investment deals with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies are expected to be announced during the US president’s state visit to the UK, which starts on Tuesday.Keir Starmer’s government has forecast a 13-fold rise in the amount of computer processing power AI will use by 2035 and is scrambling to supply the datacentres to meet that demand in the hope the technology will boost Britain’s insipid economic productivity.
Deals involving Nvidia, the world’s largest AI chip maker, and OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT AI assistant, are anticipated.But campaigners have said a wave of massive new computer warehouses will crank up Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions and put pressure on finite power and water resources.If allowed, the Thurrock complex will include up to four datacentres on “grey belt” land part-occupied by a former speedway and stock car track.It “will lead to a net increase in GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions of 568,727 tonnes CO₂е [carbon dioxide equivalent] per year during the operational phase”, planning documents examined by the Guardian show.That amounts to about 500 flights from Heathrow to Málaga every week, according to the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization’s carbon calculator.
Google’s planning application stresses this remains a “minor adverse and not significant impact when compared to the UK carbon budgets”, but campaigners disagree,“Google’s planned facility in Essex will produce carbon emissions several times higher than those of an international airport,” said a spokesperson for Foxglove, a campaign group for fairer technology,“But this is just one of many ‘hyperscale’ datacentres that US big tech wants to impose on the UK – in pursuit of their own profits and regardless of the cost to our environment,“Starmer’s government needs to stop bowing to the Trump-big tech agenda and start standing up for the interests of the UK public – otherwise we will all be paying for the tech giants’ datacentres, whether in terms of soaring energy bills, dwindling water supplies or a heating planet,”Datacentres now consume about 2.
5% of the UK’s electricity, and demand on the grid is expected to increase fourfold by 2030, according to the House of Commons library,Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe British government does not believe datacentres will have a significant impact on the UK’s carbon budget because of its ambitious targets for electricity grid decarbonisation,Rather it is worried that without massive investment in new datacentres, the UK will fall behind international rivals, including France, resulting in a “compute gap” that “risks undermining national security, economic growth, and the UK’s ambition to lead in AI”, according to a July research paper from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology,Other important datacentre projects include a £10bn scheme on the site of a former coal-fired power station near Blyth in Northumberland that was granted planning permission in March,It is poised to be at the heart of a UK-US deal involving Nvidia and OpenAI.
It was also reported at the weekend that Google is in early-stage talks about building a mammoth datacentre on Teesside.Bain & Company, a global business consultancy, said on Monday that AI and datacentres could account for 2% of global emissions and 17% of industrial emissions by 2035, with the impact highest in countries where fossil fuels still dominate power generation.Google declined to comment on its planning application for the Thurrock site.On Teesside, it said: “We do not comment on rumours or speculation.”
Big pharma firms have paused nearly £2bn in UK investments this year
Big pharmaceutical companies have ditched or paused nearly £2bn in planned UK investments so far this year, causing “suffering” to patients, as ministers gear up for discussions with Donald Trump amid a row over drug pricing.The government’s plan for the life science sector, a key pillar of the economy, has been thrown into disarray, after US drugmaker MSD’s shock announcement last Wednesday that it would scrap its £1bn London research centre. Two days later, AstraZeneca decided to halt a planned £200m expansion of its research facilities in Cambridge.Combined with a scrapped project by AstraZeneca in Liverpool and a shelved Eli Lilly lab in London, four projects worth more than £1.7bn have been pulled or paused this year
Healthy, safe and getting along with each other: Australia attempts to look beyond GDP to measure what matters
Too often economists reduce important issues, like prosperity, to a narrow set of indicators such as gross domestic product to measure national progress.Anything that boosts GDP is good, right?Well, no, of course not. Growing the size of the economy while wrecking the environment or making people miserable is no step forward.So a number of countries around the world – including the UK, Canada and New Zealand – have introduced alternative ways to measure wellbeing that goes “beyond GDP”.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailTreasury, under the direction of Jim Chalmers, established the “Measuring What Matters” framework in 2023 to track our progress towards “a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia”
Trump official confirmed to Fed board but court rejects Lisa Cook removal bid
Senate Republicans voted on Monday to confirm a senior Trump official to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors as the White House raced to strengthen the US president’s control over the central bank ahead of its latest meeting.Hours before Fed policymakers convene for their September decision on interest rates, the Senate voted 48 to 27 to confirm Stephen Miran – already chair of Donald Trump’s council of economic advisers – as a governor.The vote concluded just as a US appeals court declined the Trump administration’s request to fire Lisa Cook, a governor appointed by Joe Biden, before the two-day policy meeting begins on Tuesday. The ruling from the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit means that Cook may remain in her position during the policy meeting where the Fed is expected to cut interest rates.Miran’s appointment marks the first time in the history of the modern Federal Reserve, which stretches back almost a century, that a sitting member of the executive branch would also work at the highest levels of the central bank
Hackers steal private data of Gucci, Balenciaga and McQueen customers
Hackers have stolen data from customers of the luxury fashion group Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen.Cyber-attackers have stolen data of potentially millions of customers, including the names, phone numbers and email addresses of customers of the fashion group, it has emerged.Paris-based Kering said the breach happened in June and that no financial information – such as bank account numbers, credit card information, or government-issued identification numbers – was taken.The attackers have been identified as a ransom-seeking group, Shiny Hunters.Kering said on Monday: “In June 2025, we identified that an unauthorised third party gained temporary access to our systems and accessed limited customer data from some of our [fashion] houses
Argos was a bad buy – but Sainsbury’s doesn’t need to sell at a silly price | Nils Pratley
The thinking behind Sainsbury’s £1bn-plus purchase of Argos back in 2016 wasn’t entirely other-worldly. The big idea was that, by putting Argos general merchandise shops within Sainsbury’s supermarkets, both chains would benefit via a customer crossover effect. But the problem was also screamingly obvious: why volunteer to step in front of Amazon’s non-food steamroller?Simon Roberts became chief executive of Sainsbury’s in 2020, replacing Mike Coupe, the architect of the Argos deal, and immediately indicated where he stood. His “food first” strategy wasn’t quite a declaration that he viewed Argos as inessential to the day job of competing with Tesco et al, but it wasn’t far off.Thus nobody was surprised by Sainsbury’s confirmation on Saturday that it was considering an approach for Argos from JD
US agrees commercial terms on TikTok sale, as Trump says China talks went ‘very well’ – as it happened
Donald Trump has dropped a firm hint that the US and China have reached a deal about the future of TikTok.Posting on Truth Social a few minutes ago, Trump declares that the meeting taking place between officials from the US and China about trade in Madrid had gone “VERY WELL”Trump wrote:The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly. A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!! President DJTTikTok’s owner, Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, has faced a Wednesday deadline to find a buyer for the short video site’s US operations, or be banned in the country
Berthoumieu banned for biting Wafer in blow to France before England clash
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