ECOS to expand its work on the environmental impacts of data centres
By Digital technology contributes significantly to global carbon emissions and electricity consumption. To address this, infrastructure underpinning the digital transition – like data centres – must be developed and used responsibly, transparently, and with respect to our limited resources. Yet despite the urgent need, the European Union lacks coherent policies on energy and sustainability challenges arising from digital technologies. ECOS is working to change this in a new collaboration with Open Future, funded by the Green Screen Catalyst Fund.
We live our lives increasingly online – from internet browsing to work emails, watching the latest Netflix series, and everything in between. Data centres play an essential role in meeting the demand for digital technologies, and with further innovations like AI coming increasingly into play, this will not slow down anytime soon. But we must ensure that digital advances do not come at the expense of our environment.
The amount of energy needed for data centres is already enormous – and it is rising. By 2030, data centres are projected to eat up 4% of the electricity used globally, reaching as much as 15% in countries like Denmark. They also use many natural resources, from space, land, and water to raw materials. For instance, the amount of water a typical data centre uses every day equals a city of 30-50,000 people.
A challenge of such magnitude requires legislation to match, but EU rules on digital technologies, particularly data centres, are fragmented and lack a comprehensive strategy. We need legislation to catch up with real-world conditions and practices – and quickly. Digital technologies need to be open, interoperable, environmentally sustainable, and manufactured and used responsibly to be fit for the future.
EU rules do not currently address hardware and software simultaneously, but they must if they are to improve the energy efficiency of data centres. Resources used for hardware should become more efficient and circular. While software, which drives the energy needs of ICT infrastructure, should be more strongly regulated – particularly when it comes to energy performance. For example, the updated EU Energy Efficiency Directive includes a requirement to monitor the energy performance of data centres, but it neither mandates efforts to reduce their energy consumption nor ensure their more sustainable use.
To draw attention to the issues and how to resolve them best, ECOS has teamed up with Open Future, a think tank focusing on solving challenges the digital world faces, like securing digital rights, building a democratic information society, and establishing a digital public space that is both open and sustainable. To achieve the latter, the efficient use of materials and energy must be addressed, and the environmental impacts of our digital dependence limited.
ECOS and Open Future will work together to research the environmental costs of Europe’s data centres, highlighting the need to reduce energy consumption and promote energy efficiency in the digital economy. Our joint work towards ensuring the sustainability and transparency of Europe’s data centres is funded by the Green Screen Network’s Catalyst Fund.
Together, we aim to underscore that the transition to renewable energy alone is not enough to meet the vast challenges posed by the climate crisis. The EU must adapt its digital policies to find a better balance for Europe’s twin transitions: green and digital.
We want the outcomes of our research to inform and drive urgent policy change towards sustainable digital technologies. Our work will shine a light on the sustainability of ICT, in particular data centres, and help to carve out a new space for NGOs to collaborate, share narratives, and combine efforts to tackle the interdependency between climate justice and digital rights.
