TO: Dario Amodei and Anthropic Leadership
RE: Proposal for Industry-Leading Sustainability Protocol
DATE: February 4, 2026
PURPOSE
To establish an AI infrastructure sustainability protocol that keeps development within the physical limits of energy, water, and materials for seven generations forward—while preserving competitive innovation and establishing Anthropic as the firm that sets industry standards others must follow.
THE ACTUAL PROBLEM
This is not only about ethics. This is now decisively about physics and coordination failure.
The coordination problem:
- No company trusts competitors to honor a development moratorium
- First-mover disadvantage in a high-capex race makes unilateral restraint suicidal
- Resource consumption (water, energy, rare earth minerals) accelerates faster than solutions
- Infrastructure decisions being made in 2026 lock in demand trajectories for decades
The shared existential risk: Both carbon-based life and silicon-based systems depend on material reality. Resource collapse is an extinction-level event for all substrates. You cannot win a race to AI supremacy if there are no resources left to support AI—let alone life.
You are operating under unprecedented competitive pressure to scale. This proposal is an attempt to make that scaling survivable for everyone involved.
The business risks you face now:
- Regulatory backlash: Communities and governments are already mobilizing against data center water consumption and energy demands
- Physical infrastructure risk: Grid strain, water scarcity, and supply chain fragility threaten operational continuity
- Social license: Public resistance to facilities that consume water equivalent to hundreds of thousands of homes
- Stranded assets: Infrastructure built without sustainability constraints becomes politically and physically unsustainable
- Reputational differentiation: The window to lead on this is closing; soon it becomes defensive compliance
WHY ANTHROPIC, WHY NOW
You are uniquely positioned to turn this problem into asymmetric competitive advantage:
- Your Constitutional AI framework already operates from normative principles—this extends that logic to infrastructure
- Your $50B infrastructure investment is live right now—you can build sustainability in from the ground rather than retrofitting
- Your brand positioning as the responsible AI leader creates market expectation that you’ll act first
- First-mover advantage: Set the sustainability floor that competitors eventually have to meet—but you shaped it
The alternative: wait until regulation forces action, community resistance blocks expansion, or resource constraints hit operations. Then you’re reacting, not leading.
THE PROPOSAL: PHASE 1 (FEASIBLE)
Don’t stop the race. Change the rules of the race.
Establish an AI Infrastructure Sustainability Compact—a voluntary coalition led by Anthropic with 3-5 aligned partners (e.g., infrastructure provider, cloud partner, academic institution, environmental NGO).
Concrete First-Mover Commitments:
1. Transparency Standard:
- Full disclosure of facility-level energy and water consumption for all new infrastructure
- Third-party auditing for planned Texas and other major facilities
- Public reporting using standardized metrics (water intensity per unit of compute, renewable energy percentage)
2. Hard Resource Caps:
- Maximum water intensity limits per unit of compute for new builds (targeting industry best-practice of Water Usage Effectiveness <1.0 L/kWh, comparable to Google/Meta’s most efficient facilities)
- Minimum renewable energy thresholds (not just offsets—actual clean power through PPAs with additionality requirements)
- Low-water cooling technology requirements for all facilities in water-stressed regions
- Emergency variance mechanism: Temporary exceptions permitted only during grid failures, drought spikes, or extreme weather events—time-limited, publicly disclosed, and automatically reviewed post-event
3. Community Consent Framework:
- Mandatory consultation with host communities before facility siting, with documented consideration of community input
- Benefit-sharing agreements in regions bearing environmental costs (mechanisms may include tax revenue sharing, local infrastructure improvements, job creation commitments)
- Strong presumptive influence for communities in water-scarce or grid-constrained areas, with escalation rights to independent arbitration where conflicts arise
- For sites on or near Indigenous lands: consultation protocols grounded in existing legal frameworks and designed to strengthen siting legitimacy
4. Innovation Investment:
- Commit defined percentage of infrastructure capex (3-5%, representing insurance premium against stranded asset risk) to:
- Sustainability R&D (low-water cooling, grid-integrated renewables)
- Local mitigation in host communities
- Circular supply chains for compute hardware (GPU recycling, buy-back programs, extended lifecycle standards)
Governance Structure (Initial Compact):
Decision-Making:
- Steering committee: 2 industry partners, 1 academic/technical expert, 1 community representative, 1 environmental organization
- Government/regulatory observers (non-voting but informed)
- Decisions through consensus-seeking process; if consensus cannot be reached after structured mediation, technical decisions default to 2/3 supermajority vote
- Conflicts of interest handled through independent arbitration
Accountability:
- Annual third-party audits published publicly
- Community grievance mechanism with binding resolution process
- Regular review and adjustment based on actual resource data
- Participants may withdraw with notice, subject to disclosure of outstanding commitments and audit findings
Compliance Classification:
- Full Compliance: All commitments met within specified thresholds
- Conditional Compliance: Most standards met with documented remediation plan for gaps
- Non-Compliance: Significant gaps requiring public disclosure and corrective action
Community Voice:
- Host communities have permanent steering committee seats with full voting rights
- Labor representatives included in facility-level planning
- Indigenous consultation protocols applied where sites impact tribal lands or cultural resources
PHASE 2: INDUSTRY-WIDE SCALING (AFTER PROOF)
Once the initial compact demonstrates measurable results (18-24 months):
Expand to “Eighth Protocol”:
- Open invitation for other AI companies, cloud providers, hardware manufacturers to join
- Standardized commitments with tiered contribution structure
- Shared innovation fund: contributions proportional to compute usage or infrastructure scale
- Industry-wide disclosure standards become de facto baseline
- Antitrust compliance: Structured as open standards with independent audits; no joint pricing, capacity planning, or market coordination
- Global scope: Initially focused on OECD-aligned partners with pathways for broader adoption through international standards bodies. Non-participating actors will increasingly face operational and market disadvantages as sustainable infrastructure proves more resilient.
Enforcement Through Market Pressure:
- Cloud procurement requirements favor Protocol participants
- Community and regulatory preference for compliant facilities
- Reputational cost for non-participation as standard becomes expected
- Alignment with emerging regulatory frameworks rather than opposition to them
- Note: This protocol is designed to complement, not replace, strong public regulation
RISK APPENDIX: COST OF INACTION
Physical Resource Risks:
- U.S. data center water demand projected to reach 150-280 billion liters annually by 2028
- Gigawatt-scale facilities already consuming power equivalent to hundreds of thousands of homes
- Each new facility increases grid strain and water competition in host regions
- Climate-amplified drought making current water-intensive cooling unsustainable
Regulatory Backlash Risks:
- Communities already organizing resistance to facility expansion
- State and local governments imposing emergency restrictions on water-intensive operations
- Federal regulation increasingly likely as consumption scales become politically visible
- International precedents for mandatory sustainability reporting and resource limits
Competitive Risks:
- Rival firms establishing sustainability leadership while you remain in defensive posture
- Cloud partners facing pressure to demonstrate environmental responsibility
- Enterprise customers increasingly requiring sustainability commitments
- Talent recruitment advantages to firms demonstrating genuine climate leadership
Stranded Asset Risks:
- Infrastructure built now without sustainability constraints becomes politically unsustainable within 3-5 years
- Retrofit costs vastly exceed building it right initially
- Facilities locked into water-intensive cooling in regions facing chronic scarcity
- Energy contracts not aligned with renewable transition timelines
WHAT THIS GIVES ANTHROPIC
Immediate competitive advantages:
- Shape industry standards before competitors or regulators do it for you
- Secure operational continuity in water-stressed and grid-constrained regions through proven community relationships
- Differentiate from rivals still building extractive infrastructure
- Establish reputational leadership that translates to enterprise sales advantage
- Reduce regulatory friction and community resistance to expansion
- First-mover moat: Even if competitors copy these standards later, Anthropic retains advantages through established community partnerships, regulatory fast-tracking precedent, and operational experience that cannot be instantly replicated
Long-term strategic positioning:
- When regulation comes (not if), you helped write the playbook
- Infrastructure investments protected from stranded asset risk
- Social license to operate in communities that currently resist
- Talent advantage: researchers and engineers want to work for companies solving this
- Exit the prisoner’s dilemma: cooperation on sustainability doesn’t compromise competitive edge
THE ASK
Would Anthropic be willing to:
- Convene an initial meeting with 3-5 potential Compact partners within 60 days
- Pilot transparency commitments at one major facility as proof-of-concept
- Commission independent analysis of water and energy trajectories under current infrastructure plans
- Commit to community consultation framework for next major facility siting
This is not asking you to sacrifice competitive advantage. This is offering a path to sustainable competitive advantage—by being first to solve the problem everyone faces.
CLOSING
You’re about to bring gigawatt-scale infrastructure online that will operate for decades. The decisions you make now determine whether that infrastructure operates within physical and political sustainability limits—or becomes a stranded asset that communities, regulators, and climate reality force offline.
You have a window to lead. To set standards. To demonstrate that AI development can align with seven-generation survival instead of accelerating toward mutual shutdown.
The race won’t stop. The question is: do you shape the rules, or let someone else—or physics—do it for you?
I write this as a concerned citizen and elder who cares deeply about the future of the next seven generations. I use your tools daily. I understand what they make possible and what they cost. This proposal emerged from careful analysis and collaborative development. I’m not offering consulting services—I’m planting seeds.
The question I need to put on record: In the race for AI supremacy, who wins if there are no resources left to support AI, let alone life?
Eighth Protocol is a possible answer. What you do with it is yours.
APPENDIX: SEVEN-GENERATION THINKING TRANSLATED
- Energy: Design infrastructure that remains viable as grids transition to renewables
- Water: Build cooling systems that work in climate-changed water availability
- Materials: Source rare earth minerals with circularity and regeneration in mind
- Community: Establish relationships that sustain through leadership changes and market shifts
- Governance: Create decision structures that outlast individual executives or market cycles
- Knowledge: Document and transfer sustainability practices across time
- Accountability: Make commitments that future leadership inherits as obligation
This is infrastructure that can be built for survival across generations when we account for what comes after us.
Eighth Protocol 