Denmark: Sustainable procurement for future data centers and software

Energy-efficient data centers 

Energy-efficient cloud computing has become a priority for the EU, and data centers must become more energy efficient, recycle waste energy, such as heat, and increase renewable energy sources to become carbon-neutral by 2030. To meet this goal, the EU-Commission will, among other things, rely on the EU Green Public Procurement criteria (GPP criteria) for data centers, server rooms, and cloud services.

The objective of GPP criteria is to help public authorities ensure that data centers' equipment and services are procured in such a way that they deliver environmental improvements that contribute to European policy objectives for energy, climate change, and resource efficiency, as well as reducing life cycle costs. The use of the criteria is voluntary. 

Our public procurement team at Bird & Bird Denmark have already authored several articles about the GPP criteria, but how do we supplement these criteria from 2020 with new aspects?

Digital growth and environmental responsibility

Digitisation, data, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence are key tools to achieve our climate goals. However, digital solutions themselves have a significant climate footprint. For the fourth time in a row, Denmark tops the UN's E-Government Survey 2024, which ranks countries' digital development - and this comes with a responsibility! Today, digitisation has an energy consumption that is significantly higher than the entire aviation industry, and in Denmark, data centers are a particularly significant and growing part of digitisation's energy consumption.

Danish IT suppliers are advocating for more green requirements to be implemented in public IT tenders. Some suppliers have specifically proposed that evaluation based on green parameters should be made mandatory in IT tenders, as is the case in Norway. However, in Denmark, there is no tradition of mandatory green requirements in public procurement that go beyond the EU's established minimum requirements.

As part of the Danish public digitalisation strategy 2022-2025, a coordinated testing of the GPP criteria for data centers, server rooms, and cloud services - in specific IT tenders - has been conducted to assess the economic and competitive consequences of using these criteria.

The results: The testing show that GPP criteria reduce complexity and resource consumption for both purchasers and suppliers compared to other green requirements. A more widespread and consistent use of GPP criteria will give suppliers greater visibility of future requirements, which will support more suppliers to invest in making their physical infrastructure more climate and environmentally friendly. Based on this, it is recommended that public authorities, when purchasing data center-related services and products, 

i) use the GPP criteria and 
ii) ii) adapt them to their needs, the current capabilities of the market, and the economic framework, but maintain the criteria's accounting and documentation methods. 

However, we should have even higher ambitions!

Green Metrics for software

Parallel to the trials in Denmark, the MitViDi - Green Metrics for Public Digitalisation Acquisitions project, funded by the European Regional Fund (ERDF), have aimed to create metrics for green public procurement of software. Draft criteria have been discussed at a Nordic market dialogue earlier this year, in which The Danish Agency for Digital Government participated, and the criteria are now published through a Finnish website for the MitViDi project where public procurers can obtain tools and inspiration for setting requirements or even find almost plug and play criteria, as is also the case for the GPP criteria.

Criteria from the MitViDi project have been developed based on developer interviews, and the criteria includes offline mode, backend and frontend capacity, power management, user and admin load monitoring, setting modification and default setting, as well as functional and documented application programming interfaces (APIs) and more.

The criteria are already being used and are a clear complement to the GPP criteria. The MitViDi criteria are divided into base, forerunner, and top-level criteria for standard software, custom software, and consulting services, respectively - like the division into core and comprehensive criteria for data centres, server rooms and cloud services in the GPP-document.

Criterion examples for sustainable software

An example of a criterion is that the software must be able to function offline. Offline features enable the use of the software in at least some situations where it would otherwise be challenging or unnecessary to establish a network connection, and workability is not completely lost due to possible connection or service interruptions. The criterion indirectly directs the system architecture towards energy efficiency by increasing the use of cache and forcing the development of the system's various parts to consider the amount of network traffic. However, the use of the criterion requires basic knowledge of the software functions that are desired to work offline. The criterion in question is thus poorly suited for the development of web pages and solutions that work in a browser. For these, it is more important to focus on the sensible use of cache in all parts of the system.

Therefore, another example of a criterion that can be used for the procurement of web pages is the criterion that the software utilises local and server cache to reduce the data transmission required to use the software. The effects of cache are significant if users have reason to visit the same page repeatedly or otherwise reuse specific resources when visiting the website. Offering a static page via the server's cache is also much more efficient than generating a corresponding dynamic page with each visit.

A final example is the criterion of default settings. Most users do not touch settings that they do not find relevant to themselves or that they do not feel they know enough about. This means that default settings simultaneously act as a strong recommendation or even an immutable factor for many users. The better the default settings support environmentally friendly use, the more the software saves costs over its lifetime. The end user's default settings should be selected so that the optimal settings for environmental impact/power consumption are selected by default.

Green criteria for a sustainable future

It is fundamental to work with green criteria for software and data centers to minimise the impact of technology on the environment and ensure long-term economic sustainability. By prioritising sustainable solutions in our procurement processes, society can benefit from the growth of technology without compromising the planet's future.

Most recently, our public procurement team at Bird & Bird Denmark incorporated green criteria into a tender for a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) web solution for Denmark’s official tourism organisation, Visit Denmark, which is responsible for promoting Denmark as a travel destination. Additionally, we applied similar criteria in a tender for an Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) for the IT and Development Agency under the Danish Ministry of Taxation, which ensures effective IT solutions to support the Danish Tax Administration in fulfilling its responsibilities. More to come.