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Working Session on Gateway 5: Financial Structuring & Credit Approvals
March 18 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Halt the Harm Network participants are invited to a special working session on a specific gateway (or phase) of data center development.
Data centers cost billions to build, requiring complex financing from banks, institutional investors, and insurance companies. Before committing money, these financial institutions assess project risks—including regulatory problems, community opposition, and what’s called “social license to operate.” Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations have become part of many investment decisions, creating new pressure points that didn’t exist a decade ago.
Read More about Financial Structuring & Credit Approvals
This matters because documented community opposition directly affects investment risk. Credit rating agencies evaluate project risk; insurance companies assess liability; ESG-focused investors scrutinize environmental and social conflicts. When communities generate sustained opposition, file permit challenges, document environmental concerns, and attract negative media coverage, they’re creating quantifiable risk factors that affect financing costs. Projects have been delayed, restructured, or abandoned when financial partners became concerned about controversy.
Communities can identify and target lead financial partners, file detailed investor engagement letters citing ESG conflicts, present social license risk to credit rating agencies, and generate financial media coverage of project controversies. Coordinating with shareholder activists who can raise concerns at investor annual meetings has also proven effective. Developers need to close financing before controversy escalates—which means early, organized opposition can make their deals much harder to complete.
About these Working Sessions
These sessions are part of a network project addressing the harms of bad data centers.
The format is a facilitated Zoom call to share on-the-ground experience, tools, resources, and information. The outcome is a collection of refined tools and knowledge the whole network can use. As a participant you can access the shared document for notes and resources.