ITALY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Maria Cristina Breida, Giuseppe Bovenzi, Valerio Vinci and Sonia Marlazzi, EY Società tra Avvocati
The provision stipulates that the authorisation is to be granted within the framework of a unified procedure by the authority competent to issue the integrated environmental authorisation (AIA – Autorizzazione Integrata Ambientale ), following a joint administra - tive review among the competent authorities ( confer- enza di servizi ). The unified procedure concentrates the permits, assessments and clearances provided for by Legislative Decree No 152/2006 (the Italian Consolidated Environmental Code), including the integrated environmental authorisation, the environ - mental impact assessment and the water-use and atmospheric-emissions titles. The application for authorisation to construct a data centre shall, in particular, be accompanied by the doc - umentation and project designs required to obtain the necessary permits for the installation and operation of the facility, including those required for the integrated environmental authorisation, environmental impact assessment, landscape or cultural heritage authori - sation, water use, atmospheric emissions, and urban planning compliance verification against municipal plans. The procedure is required to be concluded within ten months from the date on which the completeness of the documentation attached to the application is veri - fied. This deadline may be extended by no more than three months and only in exceptional circumstanc - es. Notably, the time limits for environmental impact assessments run within this procedure are halved. On 21 July 2026, the Italian Ministry of the Envi - ronment and Energy Security, in response to ques - tions submitted by industry stakeholders, issued its first operational guidance on the new authorisation framework for data centres introduced by the afore - mentioned Decree-Law No 21/2026. The guidance is intended to facilitate the proper preparation and sub - mission of authorisation applications and to ensure their admissibility and procedural viability within the competent administrative proceedings. The legislative measures adopted to date address the procedural aspects of data centre regulation but do not engage with the substantive environmental and
climate dimensions, and notably with the environmen - tal performance data centres are expected to meet. This gap has been addressed, at least in part, by the Guidelines for Environmental Assessment Procedures for Data Centres adopted by the Ministry of Environ - ment and Energy Security (Directorate-General for Environmental Assessments) in August 2024. The Guidelines are addressed to both project proponents and the competent authorities responsible for envi - ronmental review, with the objective of defining the principal aspects to be examined in the context of environmental assessment procedures applicable to data centres whose emergency generators have an aggregate installed thermal capacity exceeding 50 MW. Data centres in this category are subject to inte - grated environmental authorisation (AIA); depending on whether aggregate installed thermal capacity falls between 50 and 150 MW or exceeds 150 MW, they are also subject, respectively, to a screening for environ - mental impact assessment or to a full environmental impact assessment (“EIA” – or “VIA”). The Guidelines identify the aspects that proponents are expected to cover in order to satisfy the envi - ronmental review, which encompass the full range of impacts associated with data centre construction and operation: land use and soil consumption, water resources, biodiversity, air quality and climate, land - scape and human health. Among the key environmental and climate-related criteria, the Guidelines require: (i) the selection of the installation type with the least available environmen - tal impact, assessed through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology; (ii) preference for brownfield and disused industrial sites when selecting the project location; (iii) production of energy from renewable sources, with maximum possible coverage through photovoltaic systems on rooftops, canopies and sealed surfaces; (iv) recovery of cooling water and use of geothermal energy for interior air conditioning where possible; and (v) a climate verification analysis aimed at ensuring that the project’s greenhouse gas emissions are consistent with the objective of climate neutrality by 2050.
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