Climate Week NYC 2026: Data Centers, Energy, Communities and Trust
During Climate Week in New York, we moved between GeSI's program and sessions run by other organizations open to the public. The Greensparc team was a buzz in NYC. We moderated panels, spoke about AI and resilience, listened to community advocates, utilities, and energy innovators, and joined talks at the UN.
The rooms were very different, but the themes cut across participants. By the end of the week, they were asking the same questions. Who gets told what, and when? Who benefits? And who will still be around to answer for data centers in the years to come?
What stood out from all these conversations?
1. Transparency Is The Starting Point, Not The Finish Line
Every session came back to it. At the Southern Environmental Law Center's session on community-led advocacy, speakers described local officials signing non-disclosure agreements. They also described a Mississippi planning commission that learned it had approved a data center only after the vote. On our GeSI panel, Tom Moran of Colt put it plainly: for a developer today, less transparency means more risk, not less.
Openness alone isn't enough. Josh Hatch of Brightworks Sustainability pointed out that you can publish data and still leave people confused. Information has to be comparable and easy to read, so a community can tell a good operator from a poor one. That's where accountability comes in: say what you'll do, report on it, and keep reporting.
Post Climate Weeks, we are thrilled to see that some of the hyperscale builders are doing away tiwht NDA that hide the details. The work continues to see how that new openness will translate to community trust over time.
2. The Social License To Operate Is Local, And It Has To Be Earned
This idea carried over from GeSI's sessions in Buenos Aires. Nizar Kammourie of SAWACO said data centers no longer need just an engineering license; they need a social one. Water and land are local. A facility that will run for 15 or 20 years has to fit what a town needs now and what it plans to become.
Tom shared a sobering finding from a recent UK survey: the more people learn about data centers, the less they want one nearby. Efficiency scores and carbon numbers don't answer a resident's questions. Limits and regulations do. How much water and power can a community spare, and does the project fit inside that and plan for growth?
3. No One Builds Data Centers Alone
Utilities, developers, local governments, and residents too often talk past each other. A representative of Enel shared what has worked on energy projects for them locally: open a storefront on Main Street, hold office hours, and start listening a year before you break ground. He also noted that the most trusted voices are rarely from industry. They're landowners, school superintendents, and local economic development leaders.
Too many groups are writing separate standards for data centers. We learn faster when those efforts connect instead of compete. On this, we agree and are proud to be part of the GeSi Datacentres, Energy and Water Working Group and will be sharing the papers and planning that the group is developing soon.
4. Energy Is Still The Bottleneck
A few years ago, energy wasn't seen as the limit for AI. Today it is. Several speakers noted that most of the new power waiting to connect to the grid is clean; it's just slow to connect or get legal approvals. David Roberts of Volts also warned that anger at data centers could spill over into opposition to the batteries, power lines, and clean energy the country needs anyway.
The conversation is moving toward what Greensparc builds. We build small, modular data centers; 20 megawatts is the sweet spot, in places that already have power available, often renewable power that would otherwise go unused. We start with the local utility. Instead of asking a community to build around us, we look for places where we can fit what's already there.
5. Listen First, Then Meet People Where They Are
Anna Demeo of Merge4 Energy compared this moment to the 1990s, when everyone had to learn computers. Now we all need to learn a bit about energy. Our industry has to explain, in plain terms, what people care about: land, water, power, and cost, and how it affects them.
Abre' Conner of the NAACP added that communities often understand far more than they get credit for. Meeting people where they are means answering the questions they're asking, not reading from a script or leading with your own narrative.
We say this all the time; it means getting on a plane or a boat, sitting down with the utility, and preparing local leaders for what they'll hear at the next town hall. It also means being honest about what we won't bring.
What We're Taking Home
Our brand promise is bridging the digital divide. NYC Climate Week was a reminder that the promise only holds if the community is part of the process from the start, and if we keep reporting long after the ribbon is cut.
Thank you to GeSI, our fellow panelists, and everyone who hosted these conversations.