---
id: terms/biohabitats-nature-first-data-center-framework
about:
  label: 'Nature First: A Framework for Data Centers'
  description: >-
    Framework from the ecological design firm Biohabitats for asking, before a
    data center is designed, whether it belongs in a landscape at all, and how
    it relates to the watershed, habitat and community around it.
  tags:
    - data centers
    - site selection
    - ecology
    - watershed
    - land use
    - planning
term:
  aka:
    - Nature First framework
domains:
  - ecology
  - places
  - water
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: 'Nature First: A Framework for Data Centers - Biohabitats'
      url: >-
        https://www.biohabitats.com/rhizome_blog/hard-questions-we-must-ask-about-data-centers/
    - title: Home - Biohabitats
      url: 'https://www.biohabitats.com/'
    - title: A Nature First Approach Will Lead to Better Data Centers
      url: >-
        https://www.asla.org/news-insights/dirt/a-nature-first-approach-will-lead-to-better-data-centers
  created: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
import:
  source: openai-linkedin-scrape 2026-10-17
  id: DT082
  kind: governance_method
  family: governance_and_concepts
  priority: supporting
  verified: false
  posts:
    - P021
  posters:
    - Biohabitats
---
Nature First is a framework developed over the past year by Biohabitats, a firm that does ecological restoration, conservation planning and nature-based water work, and written up by its founder Keith Bowers. It is organised in four parts: site selection, communities, living systems and adaptive futures. The starting point is site selection, because the most consequential decisions about a data center are made before any design begins: whether the land should be converted at all, whether the footprint could be reduced, built vertically or placed below grade, and whether previously developed or industrial land could carry it instead of forest, wetland or greenfield.

The framework asks planners to define a project's boundary by the systems it affects rather than by the property line: the watershed, wildlife corridors, water availability and quality, climate vulnerability, existing conservation investments, cumulative development pressure, and the energy, water and transport infrastructure and off-site mitigation lands that a facility depends on. It also argues that communities need information on land, water, energy, tax incentives and ecological impacts early enough to take part in decisions, and that the living systems affected should be represented through ecological science, monitoring and Indigenous knowledge alongside Western methods. Biohabitats says it is explicitly not a rating or certification scheme.

Intended users are communities, local governments and planning and design professionals. Biohabitats describes the framework as a practical starting point that will keep evolving. Published on the firm's blog on 1 September 2026 and discussed in a three-part series by Bowers for the ASLA's The Dirt, the second part dated 7 October 2026.