On 8 July 2025, UNEP’s United for Efficiency (U4E) hosted a webinar to present its newly launched Sustainable Procurement Guidelines for Data Centres and Servers. The event brought together over 60 participants from national governments, development agencies, and technical experts to explore how energy-efficient practices can support the sustainable digital transformation of economies worldwide.
The webinar was part of U4E’s efforts to promote the adoption of practical, evidence-based guidance that empowers public institutions to reduce the environmental footprint of their digital infrastructure.
The session kicked off with Patrick Blake, Programme Manager at U4E, who set the stage by introducing U4E’s mission and highlighting the rising global energy and climate footprint of data centres. Following his remarks, Soledad Garcia of U4E delved into the newly launched Sustainable Procurement Guidelines. She walked the audience through the structure and key content of the Guidelines, spotlighting some of the performance criteria and potential areas of practical applications.
Guest speaker Jay Dietrich, Research Director for Energy and Sustainability at the Uptime Institute, offered valuable insights into the global energy and environmental trends shaping the future of data centres. Speaking from an industry perspective, he underscored the widening gap between rapidly advancing technologies and the lagging pace of regulatory frameworks.
Dr. Wei Liu, Head of ESG Strategy at Alibaba Group, shared how artificial intelligence and robust ESG frameworks—which encompass Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria for evaluating corporate sustainability and ethical performance—are being leveraged across corporate ecosystems to enhance energy efficiency.
Adding a government perspective, Alexandra Albuquerque Maciel from Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy provided an overview of how the country is incorporating procurement principles into the development of national regulations for data centres. She noted that her team has been actively using U4E’s Guidelines as a reference in their work.
The session concluded with a Q&A session, where participants expressed keen interest in the potential for the Guidelines, the scope and application of some of the recommendations. The dialogue reflected growing momentum around sustainable digital infrastructure and the demand for actionable policy tools.
The webinar recording and speaker presentations are available here. For more information, please contact Patrick Blake (patrick.blake@un.org) or Soledad Garcia (soledad.garcia@un.org).