Data Centers and its environmental impacts in Brazil: A brief overview

The document investigates the environmental footprint of hyperscale data centers in Brazil, arguing that the government's push to become a global hub via the REDATA regime overlooks significant ecological and social costs. It highlights the creation of 'green sacrifice zones' where marginalized communities bear the burden of infrastructure, the extractive nature of the mineral supply chain for hardware, and the high energy and water demands of AI. The paper also critiques the 'myth' of permanent job creation and the exclusion of environmental authorities from policy-making, while detailing the specific ecological trade-offs associated with solar, wind, and hydroelectric power used to fuel these facilities.

• The Brazilian government is promoting a 'digital and green' economy through the REDATA regime, which provides federal tax incentives for data center projects that use renewable energy and allocate at least 10% of capacity to the domestic market.
• There is a concerning trend of deregulation in Brazil's data center policy, evidenced by the exclusion of the Ministry of the Environment from over 80 interministerial meetings and proposals to remove environmental licensing requirements.
• The expansion of digital infrastructure can create 'green sacrifice zones' (GSZs), where the social and ecological costs of 'clean' transitions are externalized to marginalized territories and vulnerable populations.
• Data center hardware relies on an extractive industrial chain for minerals like lithium, copper, cobalt, and rare earth elements; in Brazil, this is linked to illegal mining and environmental violence, particularly in the Amazon.
• AI-optimized data centers have significantly higher power demands than conventional ones, with some reaching gigawatt scales; Brazil's total installed capacity is estimated at 580 MW, with projections exceeding 2 GW by 2028.
• The water footprint of AI is substantial, with global demand from AI servers projected to reach 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic metres by 2027; in Brazil, the TikTok center in Ceará expects a daily consumption of 30 m³, equivalent to 230 residents of Fortaleza.
• Renewable energy sources used for data centers carry their own environmental costs: solar plants can cause habitat fragmentation in the Caatinga biome, wind farms in Ceará disrupt coastal geomorphology and mangroves, and hydropower causes extensive flooding and forced displacement of indigenous populations.
• The claim that data centers create significant employment is described as a myth, as high job numbers are limited to the temporary construction phase, while permanent operational roles are few due to automation.
• The Scala AI City project in Eldorado do Sul, Brazil, exemplifies the massive spatial demand of hyperscale facilities, spanning 7 million square metres.

APA

Gagliardi, M. P. (2025). Data Centers and its environmental impacts in Brazil: A brief overview. Roots. https://poweredbyroots.org/highlights/fellowship-for-countering-disinformation/who-bears-the-weight-of-the-clouds-research-annex.pdf

Chicago

Gagliardi, Marilia Papaléo. Data Centers and its environmental impacts in Brazil: A brief overview. Roots, 2025. https://poweredbyroots.org/highlights/fellowship-for-countering-disinformation/who-bears-the-weight-of-the-clouds-research-annex.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Gagliardi |first1=Marilia Papaléo |title=Data Centers and its environmental impacts in Brazil: A brief overview |publisher=Roots |date=November 2025 |url=https://poweredbyroots.org/highlights/fellowship-for-countering-disinformation/who-bears-the-weight-of-the-clouds-research-annex.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gagliardi2025data, author = {Gagliardi, Marilia Papaléo}, title = {{Data Centers and its environmental impacts in Brazil: A brief overview}}, institution = {Roots}, year = {2025}, month = nov, url = {https://poweredbyroots.org/highlights/fellowship-for-countering-disinformation/who-bears-the-weight-of-the-clouds-research-annex.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }