Sustainability and the EU Taxonomy

Regulation (EU) 2020/852 ("EU Taxonomy Regulation") currently creates a number of challenges for the data centre industry.

The EU Taxonomy Regulation is designed to enable the EU to achieve its climate and energy targets for 2030 and reaching the objectives of the European Green Deal. A further Delegated Regulation stipulates technical screening criteria for data centre activities on climate change mitigation and adaption.

For now, several practical issues around the implementation of this Regulation remain to be resolved. In this context, one way for data centres to demonstrate compliance with the climate change mitigation requirements would be to demonstrate compliance with all relevant practices listed as ‘expected practices’ in the most recent version of the European Code of Conduct on Data Centre Energy Efficiency. The implementation of such practices shall be verified by an independent third-party and audited at least every three years. Implementation details are currently discussed by a Roundtable Expert Group of the European Commission, with our involvement.

For climate Change Mitigation, the technical screening criteria further specify that data centres 'do no significant harm' if the following 5 objectives are meet: