WASHINGTON, D.C. -- NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) recently began participating in the Responsible Data Center Development Collaborative, joining a diversity of stakeholders in developing a framework to minimize harms from data center development in the United States.
Following is a response from Julie Cerqueira, chief program officer at NRDC:
"We engaged in this process to address concerns about health, climate, environmental, and affordability impacts that arise from data center development and to help ensure that communities who consent to building them realize meaningful benefits. Without significant participation from affected communities, their insights are lost.
“The organizers have indicated their commitment to bringing community voices into these discussions with support to enable their participation, and to reform the process for a more inclusive dialogue. That is essential. If community voices do not participate in the process; we will not participate in the process.”
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Established in 1970, NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council) works to safeguard the earth, its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. Our team of more than 800 lawyers, policy experts, scientists, economists, and communications specialists work across the United States and around the world, from offices in Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Santa Monica, as well as a representative office in Beijing and affiliate offices in New Delhi (through NRDC’s wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, NRDC India Private Limited) and London (through its UK-based partner NRDC International).