ITALY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Maria Cristina Breida, Giuseppe Bovenzi, Valerio Vinci and Sonia Marlazzi, EY Società tra Avvocati
Data Centres at the Intersection of Digital Innovation and Climate Change Introduction The environmental impact of digital infrastructure has emerged as one of the most pressing issues on the climate change regulatory agenda. As the critical infrastructure underlying cloud comput - ing, artificial intelligence, and the broader digital econ - omy, data centres are the foundation upon which eco - nomic and social activities increasingly depend. This foundational role – which is expected to strengthen as digitalisation accelerates – comes with a considerable environmental price. According to data published by the European Com - mission, data centres account for approximately 1.5% of total annual global electricity consumption. Energy consumption in this sector has grown by 12% per year over the past five years and is projected to double by 2030, driven primarily by the energy demands of artificial intelligence systems. The decarbonisation and resilience challenge posed by data centres extends beyond energy consump - tion. From a mitigation perspective, it encompasses indirect greenhouse gas emissions linked to electricity procurement, energy efficiency improvements, and the recovery and reuse of waste heat. From an adapta - tion and resilience perspective, it encompasses water stress, heat-wave exposure, grid capacity constraints, and the territorial siting of facilities. The projected electricity consumption of data centres for 2030 is associated with a water footprint estimated at 9.3 trillion litres, a volume equivalent to that required to satisfy the minimum annual domestic water needs of the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa for one year. The expansion of digital technologies relies on scarce critical raw materials essential for semiconduc - tors, high-performance computing, and data centre infrastructures, such as gallium, germanium, indium, palladium and tantalum. Their extraction and pro - cessing involve significant environmental and social impacts, including high energy use, pollution, biodi - versity loss and risks related to human rights.
In the context of the European Union’s binding com - mitments to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and achieving climate neu - trality by 2050, set by the European Climate Law, the footprint of data centres requires regulatory attention. This article examines the regulatory response at a European and national level, identifying the key trends in how legislatures are addressing the energy con - sumption, water use and carbon footprint of data cen - tre infrastructure. The current framework European Union The first legislative act adopted by the European Union on data centres as regulated infrastructure is Directive (EU) 2023/1791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2023 on energy efficiency and amending Regulation (EU) 2023/955 (the “Energy Efficiency Directive” or EED), establish - ing measures promoting energy efficiency within the Union. In particular, Article 12 and Annex VII of the EED are dedicated to data centres. Article 12 of the EED establishes transparency obliga - tions for owners and operators of data centres with an installed IT power demand of at least 500 kW. To that end, the provision requires member states to oblige such entities to make publicly available every year the following information, as set out in Annex VII: • identification data of the data centre; • its technical and operational characteristics; and • its performance over the preceding year, assessed on the basis of indicators relating to, among oth - ers, energy consumption, power utilisation, tem - perature set-point values, and the use of waste heat, water and renewable energy. By express provision of the Directive, the transpar - ency obligations do not apply to data centres serving exclusively defence and civil protection purposes, or to information subject to national or European rules protecting trade secrets, business confidentiality and privacy. The provision also requires the Commission to estab - lish a European data centre database to collect the
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