Tuesday, December 9, 2025
According to Stora Enso, today, data underpins nearly every aspect of modern life—from streaming entertainment to driving artificial intelligence—supported by a vast but unseen network of data centres. Yet these facilities face a major challenge: they demand enormous energy and are typically constructed with carbon-heavy, non-renewable materials. To meet future needs, 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 host the servers that power industries such as healthcare, finance, entertainment, and e-commerce—and the demand for these facilities is rising at an unprecedented pace. The International Energy Agency reports that global internet traffic has increased 25-fold since 2010, and the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence is set to push this growth even further.
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.
In Falun, Sweden—a city once defined by its historic copper mines—a groundbreaking new approach is taking shape. Founded in 2014, EcoDataCenter unveiled EcoDataCenter 1 in 2019, the world’s first large-scale data centre constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT) and powered entirely 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 added further.
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.
Most notably, the carbon impact is remarkable. The World Economic Forum estimates that cement production contributes roughly 8% of global CO₂ emissions, while steel accounts for about 7%. By substituting these materials with engineered wood, embodied carbon is significantly reduced, lowering the building’s total carbon footprint. In addition, wood naturally stores carbon as it grows, meaning the structure continues to sequester CO₂ throughout its lifecycle.
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.”
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.” Wernvik added further.
Fire safety measures have been continuously enhanced throughout the project, and Stora Enso’s CLT is now certified for SK3 burglary resistance, meeting rigorous security standards. Alexey Vorobyev, Technical Sales Manager at Stora Enso, highlights EcoDataCenter’s pioneering approach: “They’ve taken a highly forward-thinking stance on fire safety in mass timber, and each new building has given the team an opportunity to advance those solutions even 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.
In addition to collaborating with regional experts and sourcing local construction materials whenever possible, EcoDataCentre’s business model is firmly focused on supporting the wider community. Guided by the principle of circularity, they treat waste as a valuable resource. Excess heat generated by their data centres is captured and integrated into the local energy system. By partnering with the local energy company, EcoDataCentre has also reinforced the municipal grid, contributing to the city’s sustainable 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.
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Tags: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, CLT, digital woodworking, mass timber, mass timber building, mass timber data centre, mass timber structure, net zero, Stora Enso, sustainability, wood, wood energy
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