Last week, during kickstart.eu a group of data centre providers and trade associations launched the 'Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact' a self regulatory initiative covering a number of important issues as follows:
Energy Efficiency, Clean Energy, Water, Circular Economy, Circular Energy System and finally Governance.
However, there is already a perfectly good, well known and globally recognised initiative that covers all the above and more, the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) Scheme which can be found on this LINK
Many of the signatories are already participants in the scheme, so we question why the EUDCA, EU DG Connect and others are seeking to bring yet another data centre scheme into being which will confuse the data centre buying public.
We're on record in the Sunday Times (28/11/20) in an article entitled 'Silicon Valley's dirty data secret' stating that 'I think that theres more the big boys and girls can be doing. I completely get where they are coming from, but I don't think they are doing enough, quickly enough'
This initiative sadly, is another attempt to hoodwink the EU Commission into thinking that the data centre sector is doing enough, quickly enough, but all it is doing is trying to kick the can further down the road in an attempt to prevent a directive and further regulation.
The thing is this, a well crafted energy efficiency directive, specifically for the data centre industry that brings all the players together, specifies meaniful targets based upon the ISO30134 series of Data Centre KPIs and offers incentives for energy efficiency measures to take place is better than any self regulation and will lead to a greener european data centre estate.
We call on the EU Commission to make its own EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) the centrepiece of the discussions that are scheduled to take place, requiring mandatory participation for data centres over 50kw within the EC Member states, mandatory reporting based on the ISO30134 series of KPIs, and the creation of, and scrunity of the action plan requirements contained in the EUCOC reporting forms.
Once all the reporting forms have been provided to the EU-JRC or another DC Connect instrument, then we will have a wealth of data, from which we can make further decisions as to whether additional tax breaks, grants or further information can be provided to participants.
Our MD mooted as much in this 'opinion' piece for Data Centre Dynamics in Feb 2020 which can be read here
We stand by our statements, it is possible for the data centre sector, both professional (cloud/colocation) and the far greater 'hidden' data centre estates that belong to the telco sector and enterprise to be 'greener', they can adopt renewable energy, reuse the waste heat, provide energy flexibility and other smart city services, but it has to be done in a co-ordinated collaborative manner, this 'climate neutral data centre pact' although laudable, is not the mechanism. The existing EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) is.