Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has launched a crowdsourced website to track AI data centers and collect community reports regarding their environmental impact.
The initiative aims to document how the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure affects local resources. As tech companies build massive facilities to power AI, concerns regarding water usage, energy consumption, and land use have grown among residents in affected areas.
Brockovich is calling on communities across the U.S. to submit issues through the platform. This crowdsourcing effort provides a centralized hub for citizens to voice concerns that might otherwise go unnoticed by regulators or the public. The goal is to create a comprehensive record of the environmental and resource footprints left by these developments.
According to the platform, more than 2,700 reports have already been submitted from across the U.S. [1]. These submissions raise various concerns regarding the intersection of big tech and local ecology.
Brockovich previously gained international recognition for her work in the 1990s. She was instrumental in a lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) that resulted in a $333 million settlement [1]. That case established her reputation as a consumer advocate capable of challenging large corporations on behalf of marginalized communities.
By applying a similar model to the tech industry, Brockovich is shifting her focus toward the physical requirements of the digital age. The tracking platform serves as a tool for community organizing, and a database for potential future legal or regulatory actions against data center operators.
“more than 2,700 reports have already been submitted from across the U.S.”
This move signals a transition in environmental activism from traditional industrial pollution to the resource-heavy demands of the AI boom. By crowdsourcing data, Brockovich is bypassing traditional reporting channels to build a public ledger of corporate impact, potentially creating the evidentiary basis for future environmental litigation against the tech sector.
