Frontline Framework Community Guiding Principles

No community should be forced to sacrifice clean air, clean water, or safe homes so that corporations and billionaires can build energy-hungry facilities. We demand that public health protections be explicit, with independent monitoring, healthcare access, and investment in preventing harm. 

Organizing must start from the ground up, with residents shaping decisions, monitoring, and enforcement. Those directly impacted by pollution, displacement, or job loss from data centers must be the primary voices at the table. Those directly impacted should not have to bear the brunt of subsidizing data center buildouts. We also demand that utilities remain affordable for all.  

Temporary construction contracts or outsourced tech work do not replace stable, living-wage employment. Data centers accelerate worker displacement through automation and artificial intelligence, and without a just transition framework. Communities demand real economic justice through investments in housing, renewable energy, broadband, community ownership, and small business development. 

Voluntary promises are not enough. We demand that any commitments made must be legally binding and publicly disclosed, with transparent data on water use, energy consumption, emissions, subsidies, and corporate ownership from the beginning of a project proposal through its operation. There must also be legally binding standards for water efficiency and energy use for data center operations to ensure that precious resources are not depleted. Corporations can no longer receive tax breaks for the harm they cause communities. We demand corporate tax accountability for data center buildouts in communities. We also demand that enforcement be led by communities with clear authority to halt harmful operations. 

Large-scale data centers are deepening reliance on fossil fuels and straining fragile energy grids. We demand community-owned renewable energy, decentralized projects, and planning that protects both today's neighborhoods and future generations. 

Instead of massive corporate hubs, we envision local, decentralized, and public-interest technology and energy projects, including microgrids, broadband expansion, and shared spaces that strengthen communities rather than exploit them. The community must own these projects to ensure that they fully receive the benefits of technology shifts. 

Data centers cannot be separated from the mining of rare earth minerals, fossil fuel expansion, surveillance systems, or displacement. Organizers must name these links as civil rights issues, connect struggles across topics, and resist efforts to divide or dilute our vision. 

We honor the Jemez Principles by committing to inclusivity, just relationships, and mutual support, including in rural and urban communities, unions, policy, housing, labor, and grassroots groups, environmental and climate justice spaces, digital equity advocates, and all other spaces that connect to this struggle. Together, we are stronger than any single campaign. 

As we fight for justice, we also commit to embodying it. This means that we center empathy, care, and respect in our organizing and build movements that reflect the world we are trying to create.