Wednesday, February 18, 2026
In Sweden, EcoDataCenter and ByggPartner have jointly created the world’s first data centre with engineered wood. Built with a Sylva™ kit of parts by Stora Enso, this unique construction proves that mass timber can meet the highest technical and security demands of digital infrastructure.
Today, data sits at the heart of modern life. From streaming movies to powering artificial intelligence, our everyday lives rely on an invisible infrastructure of data centres. However, these facilities come with a clear challenge: they consume huge amounts of energy and are traditionally built from carbon-intensive non-renewable materials. The next generation of infrastructure must be both sustainable and climate resilient.
In Sweden, a pioneering project is taking a different approach. Working with main contractor and mass timber specialist ByggPartner, EcoDataCenter is aiming to be one of the world’s most sustainable data centres, and they’re the first to build a data centre using wood. By using mass timber supplied by Stora Enso, the company has created a scalable blueprint for a new type of sustainable infrastructure – one that has the potential to redefine the digital age.
Data centres: engines of the modern world
Data centres house the servers that run everything from healthcare and finance to entertainment and e-commerce, and the demand for them is growing rapidly. According to the International Energy Agency, global internet traffic has expanded 25-fold since 2010, and the rise of artificial intelligence will only accelerate this growth.
Traditionally, data centres are built with steel and concrete. Seen as strong and secure materials, and therefore well suited for critical infrastructure projects, they also carry a heavy embodied carbon footprint. While data centres are rightly seen as operationally carbon-intensive, a sustainable approach must address the full life cycle of each centre, and also account for the carbon emissions associated with materials and construction.
The city of Falun, Sweden, known for its historical copper mines, has become the site of a bold experiment to do things differently. EcoDataCenter was established in 2014, and in 2019 opened the doors to EcoDataCenter 1: the world’s first large-scale data centre built using cross-laminated timber (CLT), fully powered by renewable energy.
“There’s a long tradition of building with CLT in Sweden,” explains John Wernvik, Chief External Relations & Sustainability Officer at EcoDataCenter. “We knew we could draw on that heritage and a strong network of local suppliers. By building in wood instead of steel, we also cut embodied carbon significantly.” John concluded.
Mass timber: safe by design, sustainable by nature
Mass timber, and particularly CLT, has steadily been growing as a credible alternative to non-renewable materials for large-scale buildings. It can compete on material characteristics, as it is strong and durable, as well as being much lighter, which can often benefit complex sites. CLT-based projects can benefit from high levels of offsite processing, making them much faster than projects that utilise traditional construction methods. The health benefits of wooden buildings for workers are also well documented.
But most importantly, the carbon benefits are striking. Cement production accounts for around 8% of global CO₂ emissions, and steel production around 7%, according to the World Economic Forum. Replacing these with engineered wood drastically reduces embodied carbon and therefore the building’s overall carbon footprint. Furthermore, wood also sequesters carbon during its growth, which means that, during its life cycle, the structure is storing CO₂ within the building itself.
For data centres specifically, prefabricated wood brings unique advantages. It is easier to adapt the structure for cooling systems and future tenant needs. “Flexibility is a huge advantage,” says Wernvik. “If we need to run new pipes or cables, we can simply cut through the timber. And if we account for the fact that wood stores carbon, our buildings can achieve net-zero over their full life cycle. That’s pretty impressive.” Wernvik added further.
EcoDataCenter’s journey to sustainability
EcoDataCenter’s vision has always been to build the most sustainable data centres possible, Wernvik explains, “That was the idea from the beginning, and it’s why we chose the name. Over time we’ve used more and more timber. Today, almost 95% of the structural frame is CLT.” Wernvik concluded.
Being the first in the world to use mass timber for such a critical building type brought challenges. Convincing global clients, accustomed to traditional construction materials, took time. “The biggest challenge was getting customers on board,” recalls Wernvik. “In our industry, there are a lot of global standards to adhere to, particularly with regards to security, and so fire safety was an initial concern. It took some time to show how fire safety works, but the industry has changed: now Microsoft and Meta are also announcing mass timber data centres. Acceptance has shifted dramatically.”
Fire safety solutions have been refined as the project evolved, with Stora Enso’s CLT now approved for SK3 burglary resistance, meeting strict security demands. Alexey Vorobyev, Technical Sales Manager at Stora Enso, notes EcoDataCenter’s role as an innovator: “They’ve been very forward-thinking in how fire safety is handled in mass timber. Each new building has allowed the team to improve those solutions further.”
Since 2017, EcoDataCenter has collaborated closely with ByggPartner, Limträteknik, and Stora Enso, developing the Falun site incrementally. The iterative process of creating several data centre modules on one site, combined with the in-progress EcoDataCenter 2 in nearby Borlänge, has helped the team to innovate and raise the bar when it comes to sustainability. “We’re a tight team,” says Wernvik. “Every new building is about 80% the same, and 20% refinement. Each project is an opportunity to improve.” The build has relied on just-in-time delivery, with careful scheduling to manage limited storage space – another example of the precision planning that underpins these projects.
As well as collaborating with regional experts and sourcing local construction materials wherever possible, EcoDataCentre’s business model is also centred around supporting the wider community. With circularity as a guiding principle, waste becomes a resource. Excess heat from their data centres is captured and used within the local energy system. Working with the local energy company, they have also strengthened the municipal grid, helping to support the city’s continued growth.
Scaling up, looking ahead
EcoDataCenter is not alone in rethinking how data centres are built. In 2024, Microsoft announced it was building its first data centres with hybrid mass timber structures. Such moves signal a broader industry shift: recognising that decarbonising data infrastructure means tackling both operational and embodied carbon.
Looking ahead, EcoDataCenter believes the integration of data centres into local communities will only deepen. “Much of the future development will be about data centres as part of the local society,” says Wernvik. “Particularly from an energy perspective – waste heat, energy production, circular systems. That’s where the most exciting things will happen.”
EcoDataCenter itself is expanding. The major new site planned in nearby Borlänge, and the Falun site is growing with two new data centres. The lessons from EcoDataCenter are clear: mass timber construction works at scale, collaboration delivers innovation, and sustainable data centres can help societies thrive as well as connect.
The cloud, built with wood
As climate pressures increase, the design of data centres will need to evolve not only in terms of carbon footprint, but also resilience. Mass timber’s flexibility and adaptability may offer new possibilities for locally integrated designs that respond to environmental challenges.
The world’s first mass timber-built data centre in Falun has proven that digital infrastructure can be both cutting-edge, climate-conscious and woven into local communities. EcoDataCenter and its partners have shown how mass timber reduces embodied carbon, accelerates construction, and enables innovative and resilient design. As demand for computing power surges, the question is no longer whether engineered wood can be used for data centres, but how soon will it become the norm.
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