EU Amends Datacenter Emissions Rating System Amid Lobbying Pressure
The European Union's proposed environmental rating system for datacenters may be weakened, making it easier for facilities to offset greenhouse gas emissions using clean energy certificates from other EU states. This change is in response to lobbying from tech giants and datacenter operators, citing increased operating costs.
Key points
- The European Commission is revising its proposed environmental rating system for datacenters, initially set to be discussed on Thursday.
- The system, intended to incentivize sustainability, now allows facilities to offset emissions by investing in clean energy certificates from other EU states.
- The change was made at the behest of companies and lobby groups, citing increased operating costs.
- The EU's efforts to press datacenters for sustainability come as demand for AI and cloud services is expected to drive a significant expansion in bit barn capacity over the next decade.
- The revised regulations are set to be discussed by representatives of member states, following a leaked draft published by the Financial Times.
The European Union's proposed environmental rating system for datacenters has been amended in response to lobbying pressure from tech giants and datacenter operators. The system, initially set to be discussed on Thursday, now allows facilities to offset greenhouse gas emissions using clean energy certificates from other EU states. This change was made at the behest of companies and lobby groups, citing increased operating costs.
The EU's efforts to press datacenters for sustainability come as demand for AI and cloud services is expected to drive a significant expansion in bit barn capacity over the next decade. The proposed environmental rating system was intended to incentivize greater sustainability in datacenter operations, but the revised regulations may undermine this goal.
The European Commission has not commented on the leaked draft, which was published by the Financial Times. The Commission's initial proposal specified that facilities could only offset emissions by investing in clean energy certificates from projects in the same region as the data campus itself. The revised regulations, however, allow for emissions to be offset by investing in clean energy certificates from renewable projects in other EU states.
Sources
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