Amazon has committed roughly $1 billion to responding to community opposition around its data centers, and the response has itself drawn criticism.

The company has been praised for dropping non-disclosure agreements that had prevented local reporting on infrastructure agreements, a meaningful step in regions where residents had little visibility of what was being negotiated.

The objection is about pollution. Communities want firmer commitments on water consumption, power sourcing and emissions than the company’s framing of the problem implies, and have accused Amazon of minimising both the scale and the certainty of the impact.

The tension is structural. Data centre demand is growing faster than the grid can absorb it, which makes the siting question a political one everywhere it is being asked.