A data center can no longer be built just anywhere.
Let's measure its risk.

With the calendar, because it decides everything: the same question asked during consultation can still change the project; asked after the authorisation, it changes nothing. Appeal windows are two months — from the first day of posting for a building permit, from the last formality completed for an environmental authorisation. And once the site is running, what remains is a claim to the prefect about its prescriptions (noise, discharges, water). The whole path, step by step, is in Rights and calendar (in French), with the legal texts.

Each project receives two A–E grades — one for the site, one for the operator — from 26 indicators across 5 pillars (energy, water, land, local impact, transparency). A numeric score is computed, then translated into a letter, exactly like the food Nutri-Score everyone knows; next to it, a confidence level says whether the grade rests on solid or fragile data.

The number of pillars under tension, and how severe they are. A: no marked weakness on the pillars published on the fiche. B: solid, with one shadow. C: two clear tensions. D and E: several pillars in the red, or one major tension on its own. As with the food Nutri-Score, the letter sums up several criteria at once — and a single very poor criterion is enough to pull it down. One thing worth knowing: the cap only lifts on third-party verified proof, and no site in Europe reaches A today.

So the grade cannot be gamed. We publish the grid, the weights of the 5 pillars, the sources behind every indicator and, on each fiche, the factor that weighs most on the grade — so what counts, and in which direction. We do not publish where the thresholds sit: with that, a developer could aim at the letter instead of aiming at the ground. The method is verifiable; the recipe is not optimisable.

The site grade assesses what the project endures — territory, water, grid, land — whoever carries it. The operator grade assesses what the operator chooses — efficiency, consultation, transparency, commitments. We separate the terrain from the decisions.

Yes. Suggest it through the Contact section: we prioritize the best-documented and most-debated cases. One independence note: we never grade on behalf of a party, for or against — the grade follows the method, not the requester.

Public sources: power grid, water, land registries, census data, official records, local press. Every displayed value links to its source, and the method is open: anyone can redo the computation.

Because depth follows the data. A grade requires thresholds calibrated country by country (grid, water, land, registries, procedures) and a working correction-and-response channel — which is the case in Europe today. In the United States we first publish the 'on watch' layer: citizen oppositions ✋🏼 and moratoria ⏸️ — sourced facts, never a grade. The first US grades will come when the data and the calibration are ready, not before: we do not grade the unknown.

No, never. Scored entities do not pay for their grade. A project's grade and its justification are public and free, forever.

Because an A is proven, never promised: it is reserved for values verified in operation. A fully declarative file, however excellent, caps at B — “announced ≠ measured”. An operator earns its A by bringing third-party proof (its EED filing to the regulator, an ISO/IEC 30134 audit by an accredited body — never a marketing page) through our public correction channel: the data flips from “announced” to “measured”, the cap lifts, and the re-score is traced in the public audit log. An A cannot be bought or declared: it is demonstrated. And proof lifts the project & process grade — never the site grade: the territory is endured, it cannot be proven away.

A critic reviews a film without the studio's approval. A journalist publishes an investigation without the consent of those it disturbs. ScoreMyDataCenter belongs to that tradition: freedom of criticism and contribution to the public-interest debate. The grade is an exercise of the freedom of criticism; its strength rests on the transparency of the method, the quality of the sources and the restraint of the words. We do not ask permission to publish an independent assessment. In return, we hold ourselves to a public method, sourced facts, measured words, and a permanent right to correction and response.

Two distinct tools: factual correction — any data point is corrected on evidence, the change is dated, and when the calculation is affected the grade is recomputed under the same method version — and the operator's response, published in a dedicated space, clearly attributed and dated. Publishing a response never changes the grade automatically: it only moves when new or corrected facts change the result produced by the method.

A wrong data point is corrected on evidence, and the operator can send a response published alongside the grade. But a sourced, methodical grade is not removed on request: pulling it because it displeases would be selling it in reverse. The grade stays; the counter-argument is added.

No: it is an acceptability-risk grade, coupled with a confidence level, and it can evolve with the project. The numeric score is published to make the computation transparent, but the A–E letter is what counts — the grade applies an expert, sourced, versioned grid; it does not claim the precision of an oracle.

Yes, by design. A grade changes for two reasons: the project evolves (new data), or the yardstick evolves with the state of the art. Our thresholds anchor on standards that tighten over time (ISO, European regulation): an A always means “the best achievable today”, not “the best of 2026”. Without that, everyone would end up A as technology progresses — which is exactly why the EU energy label was reset in 2021, when nearly every appliance had become A+++. Each grade is therefore dated and tied to a methodology version: a data center excellent in 2026 may be “average” by 2036 standards — and that is precisely the score's job: reward progress, and flag what ages.

Several families, which often meet on the same project. Developers: they find the land, obtain permits and grid connection, then sell or lease. Colocation operators: they run data centers and rent out space, power and connectivity to their customers. Hyperscalers: the cloud giants, which build and run their own campuses. AI neoclouds: specialized providers renting out computing power for artificial intelligence. Energy companies and grid operators: they produce and supply electricity and connect the site (in France, RTE for transmission, Enedis for distribution). Builders and equipment makers: they construct the building and supply cooling, backup power, servers. Local authorities and the State: in France, the municipality or inter-municipal body sets planning rules and usually grants the building permit; the préfet reviews the environmental authorization. Investors and property companies: funds and real-estate firms that finance or own the buildings.

The developer prepares the land and the building (plot, permits, grid connection), then sells or leases it; the operator runs the servers inside and sells hosting to customers. The analogy: the property developer and the hotelier — one builds the hotel, the other brings it to life. Can one company do both? Yes, and it is even the dominant model among the big players: Data4, Equinix, Digital Realty develop and operate their campuses. Pure developers tend to be newcomers from real estate: H&DC, Prologis, Goodman, Segro, Altarea — they come from logistics or property development. A site announced by a developer is therefore, by nature, a real-estate project, not a data center in service.

Five roles — and above all: who talks to the territory, and who never does. The developer assembles the deal — land, permits, grid connection — builds, then sells or leases. It's the developer who meets the mayor, early on; often they vanish once the permit is granted. The owner holds the walls (a property fund, a REIT): they talk to no one locally, but they collect the rent. The operator sells the service — leasing rooms, power and connectivity to clients: it's the name on the scorecard, and the territory's contact once the site is live. The facility manager runs the building day to day (cooling, power, maintenance), often an invisible subcontractor — but it's who handles the noise and the backup generators, i.e. what disturbs neighbours. The end customer leases the rooms or the compute (a bank, a hyperscaler, a neocloud reselling further on): it never talks to the town and its name is rarely public. At the big players, the first three roles are often the same company — Data4, Equinix, Digital Realty develop and operate their campuses; among real-estate newcomers they're separate. What it changes for an elected official: the one promising jobs and recovered heat is not the one who will deliver them, and the one truly consuming is almost never in the room.

In France, broadly: 1) announcement and, sometimes, a prior public consultation; 2) filing — building permit and, most often, an environmental authorization under the classified-installations regime (ICPE); 3) review: opinion of the environmental authority, then public inquiry; 4) decision: permit granted by the mayor (or by the préfet in some cases), environmental authorization by prefectoral order; 5) appeal periods; 6) construction, often in phases; 7) commissioning, then inspections during operation. Stages can overlap, and a project can stop at any of them. The public's rights at each stage: Rights and timeline.

The word covers very different things. A political motion or council resolution calling for a pause has, on its own, no legal effect on an authorization already granted. There is, however, a legal tool: the sursis à statuer (deferral of decision). When a local urban plan is being drawn up or revised, the municipality can postpone its answer to a permit application, for two years at most (French planning code, art. L.424-1). A general nationwide pause would require a law or regulation. On this site, a moratorium is reported as a sourced fact, never as a score.

Several routes, with different effects. The administrative court: an appeal against a permit or authorization does not, by itself, stop the works. To suspend them quickly, a référé-suspension (interim suspension) is needed, granted only when there is urgency and serious doubt about legality (administrative justice code, art. L.521-1). On the merits, the judge can annul the authorization, or give the project owner time to correct a defect that can be fixed (planning code, art. L.600-5-1). These rulings can in principle be appealed, then taken to the Conseil d'État. The mayor or the préfet: they can order works carried out without authorization, or not in compliance, to be halted (planning code, art. L.480-2); for a classified installation, the préfet can serve formal notice on the operator, then suspend the activity (environment code, art. L.171-8). The project owner, finally, can suspend or abandon for financial, technical or commercial reasons.

Yes, in several cases: the deferral of decision ends (at its term, the municipality must decide within two months if the applicant confirms the application); a suspension is lifted by the judge; the authorization is regularized; an annulment is overturned on appeal; or the owner files a new application. Conversely, a building permit expires: as a general rule if works do not start within three years, or are interrupted for more than a year; this period can be extended twice by one year (planning code, art. R.424-17 and R.424-21). A stalled project is therefore not necessarily an abandoned one — which is why we never remove it without a source.

That the data center is not in service yet: a project made public, under permitting or under construction. Until it is in service, it gets no final score but a provisional range, computed on what the territory bears.

An independent observatory founded by Franck Bardol. The method is open, scored entities do not pay, and how we operate is detailed in the Open model section.