## The Growing Challenge of Data Centres and EU Sustainability Efforts
The world is striving for a important acceleration in energy efficiency and renewable energy adoption. A recent global pledge aims to more than double the rate of energy efficiency improvements to over 4% by 2030, alongside tripling the world’s renewable energy capacity.Though, the rapidly increasing energy demands of data centres pose a ample challenge to achieving these goals, frequently enough exceeding the available grid capacity for connection.
This challenge extends beyond energy consumption. Data centres have a considerable environmental footprint, requiring large volumes of water for cooling, potentially contributing to CO2 emissions depending on their power sources, and relying on critical raw materials while generating significant electronic waste.
For Europe,ensuring data centres are highly energy efficient and enduring is crucial. They must *support* the clean energy transition, not hinder it, through increased reuse of waste energy and a greater reliance on renewable sources.
The European Commission is actively addressing these issues with several upcoming initiatives. A data center energy efficiency package is slated for release in early 2026,beginning with the creation of a European data centre label. This label will provide obvious details regarding energy and water usage, as well as the proportion of renewable energy utilized.Complementing this, a strategic roadmap for digitalisation and AI in energy is being developed. This roadmap will leverage existing measures and emerging technologies to sustainably integrate data centres into the energy system, maximizing the potential of digital tools for improved energy efficiency.
A key obstacle to effective regulation and evaluation has been the lack of publicly available data on data centre consumption. Recognizing this, recent revisions to EU energy efficiency legislation now mandate the monitoring and reporting of energy performance and sustainability metrics for data centres. The Commission is establishing a European database to collect and publish this crucial data, covering energy performance and water footprint for facilities with significant energy consumption. Resources are available online to assist EU countries and data centres in understanding and fulfilling their reporting obligations.
Moreover, the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres offers a voluntary framework for operators and owners to adopt best practices for reducing energy consumption and enhancing sustainability. The latest iteration of the identified and recognised best practices for data centre energy efficiency was published in March 2025.
