Approximately 300 hectares of Finnish forest, reportedly comparable to 500 football fields, were cleared for Google’s data-center expansion before environmental-impact assessment procedures for the project had concluded. The clearing happened first; the environmental review was still running.
Finland’s supervisory agency LVV is examining whether Tuike Finland Oy, Google’s Finnish project company, failed to complete a legally required environmental-impact assessment before beginning permanent land-use conversion reportedly exceeding 200 hectares. No legal finding has been reached; this is a regulatory inquiry, not a verdict.
The clearing sits inside a much larger commitment. Google announced at least €13 billion in Finnish AI infrastructure investment through 2028, according to Reuters, spanning data centers across Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos, and Vaala. The company described it as its largest single investment in Europe.
Both sides have staked out clear positions. Google told AFP that “tree felling activities have been taking place in compliance with Forestry Act requirements,” adding that ecological surveys were conducted before work began and that areas of high environmental value were protected during forestry operations.
Hanna Halmeenpää, chair of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, disputes that framing. Satellite imagery, she says, shows four areas identified as nature sites in the local plan were bulldozed, potentially disrupting wildlife corridors and local bird species.
Halmeenpää told AFP: “In our view, operations at this construction site should be suspended until it is clarified whether the project is in compliance with the law.” The association asked LVV to halt activity at the site. No suspension has been reported in available coverage.
The core dispute is a sequencing problem that reaches beyond this single site. AI infrastructure runs on physical land, concrete, electricity, and timber, and when hyperscale projects move faster than environmental review processes, the ecological costs arrive before anyone has formally approved them.
LVV must now determine whether compliance with Finland’s Forestry Act is sufficient when a separate, broader environmental assessment was still incomplete at the time of clearing. That distinction, between forestry permits and legally required environmental-impact assessment requirements, is the legal fault line the investigation must resolve, and its outcome could set a precedent for how European regulators treat large-scale data-center development going forward.
