The first condition to stop Google in Finland was not one of the conditions Finland has been arguing about. It was a 200-hectare threshold in an environmental law from 2017.
On Tuesday 6 October the Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, LVV), the national body that has handled environmental permits and supervision since January, told Tuike Finland, Google’s Finnish project company, to stop the preparatory work that is reshaping its data center sites in Muhos and Kajaani. Tree removal, topsoil stripping, excavation, ditching and site roads are to halt immediately, and by 23 October at the latest, until the environmental impact assessments for both projects are finished. Planning, surveying and soil studies may continue.
This series has followed one question since July: who decides how Finland’s contested electricity gets used. In our last piece, Finland Took Away the Subsidy. Google Came Anyway., we argued that Finland’s strongest lever is grid access, and asked whether anyone would use it before the queue fills. This week a lever was used, though not that one. How it was used says more about Finland’s bargaining position than any of the new conditions under discussion.
The obvious misread is that Finland has turned on its largest investor, or that the €13 billion is now in doubt. Neither follows. The notice is not yet a compulsory order. LVV is first seeking voluntary compliance, and has given Tuike until 14 October to respond, including on whether it intends to comply. If Tuike does not comply, the agency says it will consider compulsory measures, which can be backed by a conditional fine. The assessment reports are expected this year. Google responded the same day: the company had fallen short of its own standards in this case, had acted in good faith under the Forest Act, and would follow the authority’s guidance. Environment Minister Sari Multala (National Coalition Party) had told Helsingin Sanomat a day earlier that Muhos would probably be slowed, partly because a permit decided without an assessment can be appealed on that ground. A slowdown is not a cancellation.
The interesting part is the calendar. Felling began on 3 March this year, before any final investment decision, and it was no secret: the public broadcaster Yle reported it that morning. Finland’s assessment law requires an environmental impact assessment when more than 200 contiguous hectares of forest are cleared permanently. Google puts the felling area at Muhos at 330 hectares.
In April, according to correspondence seen by the news agency STT, Tuike asked LVV for a case-by-case ruling on whether the assessment was needed, so that permit decisions could go ahead without waiting for it. Helsingin Sanomat reports, from LVV’s public documents, that the request argued the clearing was not a timber harvest for sale. The paper says timber from the site was sold; Google had said in March that it would donate the profits to local projects. In May LVV answered that no such ruling was called for: the felling required the assessment. According to the paper’s reading of satellite data, the felling continued until August.
On 9 September Google announced the €13 billion. On 17 September the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, an environmental organisation and so an interested party, went public and filed a request for action with LVV. The agency asked the company and both municipalities for explanations the next day
