The European Commission's Second Technical Report (“Assessment of next steps to promote the energy performance and sustainability of data centres in the EU”, 2025) lays out a practical, evidence-based pathway to a harmonised EU rating scheme, minimum performance. The European Commission's Second Technical Report (“Assessment of next steps to promote the energy performance and sustainability of data centres in the EU”, 2025) lays out a practical, evidence-based pathway to a harmonised EU rating scheme, minimum performance. The European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy has commissioned a study to support the development of minimum performance standards for data centres in Europe, aligned with the existing EU reporting requirements and the planned introduction of a rating scheme. This page presents the study. erence calls, writing drafts, drawing figures, and editing and reviewing text. Thanks also to Jon Fit the white paper and for his leadership of the ASHRAE TC9. Special thanks also to Dave Kelley (Emerson), Paul Artman (Lenovo), John Groenewold (Chase), William Brodsky (IBM). This guide provides an overview of best practices for energy-efficient data center design which spans the categories of information technology (IT) systems and their environmental conditions, data center air management, cooling and electrical systems, and heat recovery. STANDARD from TÜV NORD supports data centers in implementing energy efficiency and sustainability in accordance with the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact and the Energy Efficiency Act. It offers a modular system for compliance with EU directives and ISO 50001:2018 to demonstrate CO2.