An employee at an SFR data center in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes, on December 14, 2020. DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
Microsoft and DigitalEurope, a Brussels-based lobbying group for the information technology industry whose members include tech giants including Amazon, Google and Meta, have obtained the introduction of a confidentiality clause in European regulations on data centers. The clause blocks public access to specific information regarding their environmental impact.
The European Union sought to regulate the sector by adopting a revision of its Energy Efficiency Directive in 2023. The reform required operators of sites whose electrical connection exceeds 500 kilowatts to submit a certain number of indicators: energy consumption, water usage, energy efficiency, and technical performance data.
The European Commission was then tasked with taking what were described as technical measures to establish "a common Union scheme for rating the sustainability of data centers located in its territory." In a draft regulation made public in December 2023 and submitted for consultation, it initially proposed that the information provided by operators be published "in aggregated form."
At the start of 2024, Microsoft and DigitalEurope submitted comments requesting, in identical terms, that individual data for each site be classified as confidential, citing commercial interest. When the final version of the regulation was published in March 2024, the European Commission adopted this wording almost verbatim, so the detailed, site-by-site data became secret.
