Europe's Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact (CNDCP) publishes its first Certifications of Adherence

Europe's Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact (CNDCP) has published its first list of certifications since being set up in 2021. Over 80 service providers have now promised to be climate neutral by 2030. Further, it shared that 95% of the first cohort of signatories, which represent nearly 75% of data centee capacity in Europe, have been certified as meeting their obligations under the SRI.

In order to obtain certification, operators must be able to demonstrate:

They have a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of less than 1.3, or 1.4 for warm climates by 2030 , with new data centers meeting the target from 2025
They match 75 percent of their energy with renewable energy, or hourly carbon-free energy by December 31, 2025 and 100% by December 31, 2030.
They must "assess" 100 percent of used servers for reuse, repair, or recycling; a target percentage for reuse and repair is to be set in 2025
They must "explore" waste heat and determine if opportunities to feed captured heat from new data centres into nearby systems are "practical, environmentally sound and cost effective."

Among those fully certified are Iron Mountain, NTT and Google.

The organisation shared that seven certifications are pending, including Microsoft, OVHcloud, and T-Systems.

Speaking about the factors contributing to this, the Pact's release outlined: "Due to the complexity of reporting, plus adaption to new legislation and regulation including the EU Taxonomy and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), the certification process has taken longer than some anticipated. As a result, a small number of signatories had not completed their audits by the deadline of July 1. However, they are on track to do so in the coming weeks. In recognition of this, they have been allocated the temporary status of 'Certification – Pending.' They will achieve full certifications once audit results are reported to the Board."

Pact Board chairperson Matt Pullen commented: "The extremely high proportion of signatories which have successfully certified their climate neutral processes is a clear indication that industry has embraced self-regulation as a vital step towards meeting stringent targets for climate neutrality by 2030. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all our signatories for their hard work and commitment in achieving this significant milestone."

The full status of all signatories can be found on CNDCP's website.