Green IT
Eco Warriors
Chris Wellfair, projects director at Secure I.T. Environments, explains how the EU Ecodesign
directive impacts the data centre and why January 1 is a date to be mindful of.
H
eard of EU Directive
2009/125/EC? The EU
Ecodesign directive, as it
is better known, was first
introduced in 2009 and
defined a framework of mandatory
requirements for products that use
energy, or are related to the use
of energy. Put simply, its aim is to
ensure that when manufacturers
are designing products, they
consider the environmental impact
26 | October 2017
of those products, particularly
in terms of energy use, but also
recyclability, materials, water
requirements, refrigerants and
other pollutants. It affects products
sold in all 28 member states of the
EU, and regardless of how future
Brexit negotiations unfold it will
continue to impact the UK, as the
government (at the time of writing)
plans to roll existing EU legislation
into UK law.
One example we have all
encountered is the banning and
gradual phase out of incandescent
lamps, as they failed to meet the
minimum standards. This alone
has led to huge energy savings,
but there are of course categories
much closer to data centre design
that have been impacted by the
directive. Of the initial 10 product
groups initially covered by the
directive, the following all relate