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Call for experts to draft a temporary assessment framework for data centre activities

A framework will be developed to allow data centres to prove their compliance with the European Code of Conduct on Data Centre Energy Efficiency and thus be classified as environmentally sustainable under the EU taxonomy.

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The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) has tasked the Testing Inspection and Certification Council (TIC) to draft a temporary assessment framework for data centre activities.

Under the EU taxonomy, data centre activities can be classified as contributing substantially to climate change mitigation if they have implemented the expected practices of European Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres from the European Joint Research Centre (JRC). Compliance will have to be verified by an independent third-party and audited at least every three years. To facilitate this process, the Commission is launching the development of a temporary assessment framework for data centre activities. The framework will take the form of an assessment grid to accompany the Code of Conduct and will be approved in line with the processes used to update the Code of Conduct’s Best Practices.

Experts in this field who are interested to be part of the drafting group can apply here.

The call is open until 2 August 2022 and the first group meeting will take place soon after. Questions on the drafting group can be directed to data.centres@tic-council.org . The JRC will convene a steering group to advise the drafting group on the compatibility of the draft verification scheme with the Code of Conduct.