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TemaNord 2024:518
Ecodesign requirements for circularity of servers and data storage products
Ecodesign requirements for circularity of servers and data storage products
About this publication
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Summary
1 Introduction
2 Scoping and state of play
2.1 Servers and data storage products
2.1.1 Servers
2.1.2 Data storage products
2.2 Technical evolution of servers and data storage products
2.2.1 A movement from HDD to SSD
2.2.2 Gallium based semiconductors
2.2.3 Quantum computing
2.2.4 On premises or cloud-based solutions
2.3 Critical raw materials
2.3.1 List of critical raw materials
2.3.2 Conflict materials
2.3.3 Use of critical Raw materials
2.3.4 Supply of critical raw materials
2.3.5 Reserves of CRMs in the EU and Nordic countries
2.3.6 Future needs for CRMs
2.3.7 Secondary raw material input
2.4 Plastics
2.4.1 Current state of plastics recycling and policy in the EU
2.4.2 The impact of plastic consumption, waste, and recycling
3 Legislation, voluntary initiatives, and standards
3.1 Legislation
3.1.1 The Ecodesign Directive and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR)
3.1.2 Critical Raw Materials Act
3.1.3 Ecodesign regulation for servers and data storage products
3.1.4 Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)
3.1.5 Ecodesign regulations for mobile phones, cordless phones, and tablets
3.1.6 Energy labelling of smartphones and tablets (regulation (EU) 2023/1669)
3.1.7 Product specific legislation: Batteries
3.2 Voluntary initiatives
3.2.1 EU GPP for data centres, server rooms, and cloud services
3.2.2 EU Code of Conduct on Data Centre Energy efficiency
3.2.3 Taxonomy Regulation and delegated act
3.2.4 Data Centers (DE-UZ 228) – Blue Angel
3.2.5 Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact
3.3 Standards
3.3.1 EU material efficiency standards
3.2.2 ETSI standards
3.3.3 ITU standards especially relevant for servers and data storage products
3.3.4 Data sanitation standards
3.3.5 Plastics
4 Material aspects of servers and data storage products (Technical analysis)
4.1 Materials in servers and data storage products
4.1.1 Environmental Footprint and Material Efficiency Support for product policy
4.1.2 Critical raw materials for strategic technologies and sectors in the EU – a foresight study
4.1.3 Supply chain analysis and material demand forecast in strategic technologies and sectors in the EU – A foresight study
4.1.4 The EU Ecodesign preparatory study for enterprise servers and storage equipment
4.1.5 A situational analysis of a circular economy in the data centre industry
4.1.6 The ongoing EU study for review of regulation 2019/424
4.1.7 Input from stakeholders to this study.
4.1.8 Summary of the data on CRM content
4.1.9 Summary on material content
4.2 Lifetime of servers and data storage products
4.2.1 Server refreshing
4.3 Avoidance and reduction of highly critical raw materials and plastics
4.3.1 CRMs
4.3.2 Plastics
4.4 Reuse
4.4.1 Reparability
4.4.2 Modularity
4.4.3 Disassemblability
4.4.4 Standardization of design
4.4.5 Secure non-destructive data deletion
4.4.6 Firmware and software obsolescence
4.4.7 Digital Product Passport for Critical Raw Materials Reuse and Recycling
4.4.8 Part pairing
4.5 Recycling of CRMs and plastics
4.5.1 Current status regarding CRMs
4.5.2 Current status on plastics
4.5.3 Use of recycled plastics
4.5.4 Recycling routes
4.5.5 Recycling process
4.5.6 Input from stakeholders
4.5.7 Identified projects and companies working with CRM recycling
4.5.8 Economy of recycling
5 Environmental impacts
5.1 Impacts for servers and storage products
5.2 Impacts from mining
5.3 Impacts from manufacturing
5.4 Impacts from use phase
5.5 Impacts at end-of-life
5.6 Conclusions Environmental Impacts
6 Policy options
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Policy options ecodesign
6.2.1 Avoid
6.2.2 Reduce use
6.2.3 Reuse
6.2.4 Recycle
6.3 Other policy options
6.3.1 Green Public Procurement.
6.3.2 EU Code of Conduct
6.3.3 Harmonization and improvements on data deletion standards
6.3.4 Update of design brief
6.3.5 Due diligence
6.3.6 Basel Convention E-waste Amendments.
7 References