The first data center to be awarded the Austrian Ecolabel?
The increasing use of data and the growing number of data centers in Austria make an industry-specific sustainability label urgently necessary. Since 2024, operators of environmentally friendly and resource-conserving data centers as well as IT operators who use such centers can be awarded the Austrian Ecolabel.
Significant increase in energy consumption by data centers
Austrian data consumption has risen sharply since coronavirus. An ever-growing number of data centers in Austria have to cover the increasing computing power, which not only significantly increases energy consumption, but also generates large amounts of unused waste heat. Innovative approaches at some data centers are already making it possible to use the waste heat.
Since this year, the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection (BMK) has made it possible for data centers to be certified with the Austrian Ecolabel. The Federal Computing Center (BRZ) is already working on certification, and several private data centers are also already on their way to a greener future. Which data center will be the first in the race for initial certification with the Austrian Ecolabel?
Guideline UZ80: Austrian Ecolabel for data centers
By being awarded the Austrian Ecolabel UZ80, data centers signal an energy and resource-efficient data center performance to their customers and public or private sector procurers. Efforts are therefore currently underway by the federal and state governments, VKI and consultants to gain the first label users and thus leading companies for this Ecolabel Directive from 2025. In a second step, the BMK is also focusing on implementing already developed criteria for sustainable procurement (naBe) in practice in the federal sector with the help of such quality labels. In addition, a broader impact is to be achieved in sustainable procurement through strategic partnerships.
The Ecolabel for data center operations can be awarded to those data centers whose operators make special efforts,
- operate their data centers in an energy-efficient, environmentally compatible and resource-saving manner, and
- develop and successfully implement a long-term strategy to increase energy and resource efficiency in relation to the IT services they provide.
- There must also be an energy efficiency report in which efficiency improvement targets are defined and their achievement is reviewed.
By labeling data centers, their customers as well as public or private sector procurers of data center services are provided with an information tool that enables them to consciously make use of energy- and resource-efficient data center services.
“The development of the guidelines for the 'Data Center Ecolabel' took more than two years, as topics such as energy and resource efficiency in data centers are naturally complex,” says Andreas Tschulik, Head of Department V/7 for Integrated Product Policy, Corporate Environmental Protection and Environmental Technology at the BMK, which is responsible for the Austrian Ecolabel. “But the new ecolabel is an important step towards a more energy-efficient society of the future.”
Best practice in the use of waste heat
“It is to be hoped that the new ecolabel for data centers will also stimulate ideas for the consistent use of their waste heat,” says Christian Kornherr, who heads the ecolabel team at the Association for Consumer Information (VKI). “There are already great international examples, such as in Frankfurt am Main*, where two large heat pumps will ensure that the waste heat from a data center will cover around 60 percent of the heating requirements of a residential district from 2025 - free of charge. Wien Energie also uses the waste heat from the data center operator Digital Reality** to heat the Floridsdorf clinic,” explains Kornherr.
Interested parties also have the opportunity to seek advice from external professionals on how to achieve the Ecolabel; contacts to experts can be found here. The Ecolabel guidelines for data centers can be viewed here. The website Bytes2Heat | Best Practices offers a good overview of a variety of ideas from 15 countries, many of them from the EU and also from Austria (see the example of Klinik Floridsdorf).