Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact
The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact is a pledge of industry players and trade association of cloud infrastructure services and data centres in Europe to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. It is supported by the European Commission and Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal. The European Green Deal expects Europe to be climate neutral by 2050. The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact pledge addresses 5 areas: Prove energy efficiency with measurable targets; purchase 100% carbon-free energy; water conservation; Reuse, repair and recycle servers; look for ways  to recycle heat. Metrics to be achieved by 2025 and 2030 will have to be certified by an independent auditor, except for SMEs. One of the originality of the pledge is that if a data centre operator signatory of the pledge does not meet the expected metrics, the company would be expelled by all trade association signatories of the Pact. A first Board of Directors of the Pact was appointed for a 2 year term 24th February 2021. it is composed by 6 members. First directors are Alban Schmutz (OVHcloud representing CISPE and co-founder of the Pact), Michael Winterson  (Equinix representing EUDCA co-founder of the Pact), Stijn Grove (Dutch Data Centre Association), Emma Fryer (TechUK), Lex Coors (Interxion) and Fabrizio Garrone (Aruba). The Pact has been referenced by the European Commission as "instrumental in setting up the European Green Digital Coalition" Engagement of signatories (metrics). By signing the Pact, Data Centre Operators agree to have all their data centres operated within the European Union fulfilling several metrics. All data centre larger than 50KW of maximum IT power are considered in the perimeter of the Pact to consider. If one of the data centres of an operator fails to  meet the thresholds, a 60 days period is granted to propose a remediation plan to the board of directors of the Pact, and this plan must be executed within 6 months. If failing to meet the thresholds, the operator would be expelled from the Pact. Metrics to achieve are the following: Some metrics remains undefined like targets on water conservation, but the pledge give the signatories until end 2021 to define and agree a metric with the European Commission. Signatories. Cloud infrastructure providers and Data centre signatories include: 3DS Outscale (Dassault Systèmes), Altuhost, Aruba, Atos, AWS (Amazon Web Services), CyrusOne , Data4, DigiPlex, Digital Realty & Interxion, Equinix, FlameNetworks, Gigas, Google, Ikoula, Ilger, Infloclip, Intel Corporation, Irideos, ITnet, LCL, Leaseweb, NTT, OVHcloud, Register, Scaleway, and Seeweb. In addition, the 17 trade associations signed up at the launch are: Association of Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers Europe (CISPE), EUDCA, the European Data Centre Association, Cloud28+, Cloud Community Poland, Danish Cloud Community, Datacentre Industrien, Data Centre Alliance, Dutch Data Centre Association, Dutch Hosting Providers Association, Eco - Alliance for strengthening digital infrastructures in Germany, EuroCloud Croatia, EuroCloud France, France Datacenter, Host in Scotland, IKT-Norge, ISPConnect, and TechUK. In June 2021, signatories include 54 providers  and 23 trade associations, including providers like IBM or T-Systems.