Microsoft turns to native trees and restored prairie to calm data center neighbors

Ric Galvan, a San Antonio city councilmember, remembers the city's first data centers in the 2000s as buildings that passed for ordinary offices ^[1]. The newer ones are hyperscale facilities that run to millions of square feet ^[1]. In his district they sit along two main roads, so the same neighborhoods absorb the construction traffic and the felled trees, then live with constant bright lights and noise once the sites are running ^[3]. A lot of that land used to be green fields ^[18]. Galvan said that feeling goes away quickly when a gigantic data center is built ^[4].

What neighbors report is a sequence in time. The construction losses come first, and the operating nuisances follow for as long as the building runs ^[3]. What Microsoft tells itself is that gardens, native trees and money for ecosystem repair near its sites will limit problems such as noise pollution and lost green space ^[6][7]. It calls the program biomimicry, meant to help "our datacenters become better neighbors" ^[5].

Microsoft's pitch is a building that blends into the landscape ^[5]. In San Antonio, according to spokesperson Jennifer Lyons, the commitment is restoration. Lyons wrote in an email to The Verge that the company is "investing in enhancement projects that includes 400+ acres of woodland and pollinator prairie restoration" there, aiming to leave "land more productive than we received it" ^[16]. The 2022 clearing that started the local fight took more than 2,600 trees off 33 acres ^[13]. By acreage, the pledge is about 12 times that site ^[1]. Some of it is prairie, though, and the cleared site averaged about 79 trees an acre ^[2]. Galvan's complaint is about canopy. He said it helps offset heat, a growing problem in Texas ^[19]. "We're very proud of our trees here," Galvan said. "So it was very frustrating to see that completely decimated." ^[15]

Galvan is willing to accept a defensive motive. "Maybe ... they're trying to just make sure that they're covering their bases," he said. "But also, I think if that's the case, that's fine." ^[10] His condition is that operators address what residents have raised for years: pollution, water use and the destruction of green space ^[11]. Restoration speaks to the third. Microsoft has tried to stand apart from rivals by engaging more with the communities where it builds, and The Verge reports the approach has eased some local concerns, depending on whom you ask ^[8]. Meanwhile the company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on several more data centers in Greater San Antonio, where it has operated for almost a decade ^[12].

A site team weighing the same kind of program can sort complaints on two axes. One is timing: nuisances that end when construction ends, such as traffic and felled trees, against those that last the life of the building, such as lights and noise ^[3]. The other is where the fix lands. It can be on the site, where a neighbor can see or hear the difference from the street, or elsewhere in the metro, counted in acres. Microsoft's on-site gardens and trees and its off-site ecosystem repair both answer the construction row ^[6]. The company says the work will limit noise pollution too ^[7]. The Verge's account does not describe how, or mention lighting, so the life-of-building row, where Galvan puts the constant lights and noise, has no on-site measure in the plan as reported ^[3].