CISPE calls for harmonisation and investment to deliver effective water resilience
26 June 2025, Brussels. Today, CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Providers in Europe) published its policy recommendations for the European Water Resilience Strategy. As the voice of the European cloud sector, CISPE is entirely directed by European vendors; US Hyperscalers are present as non-voting observers only. As such, its views represent valuable insight from European businesses supporting the twin transitions to a digital and sustainable European economy.
Water scarcity is rapidly becoming a pressing challenge and CISPE strongly supports the European Commissions commitments to put water resilience at the heart of the Green Deal. CISPE members, as cloud infrastructure and data centre operators, play a dual role in achieving these aims – as responsible water users and as innovative enablers of better water management. CISPE’s recommendations include insights from both these aspects.
Through its members, and its co-leadership (with the European Data Centre Association – EUDCA) of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, CISPE has already helped create one of the most comprehensive water resilience methodologies. The Pact’s Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) measure goes further than many other existing and proposed metrics by including local water stress and quality of water indices in its calculations. This gives a more accurate ‘real-world’ target now adopted by operators delivering over 85% of Europe’s data centre capacity. This, alongside other mandatory reporting included in existing regulation such as the Energy Efficiency Directive, means that the sector is already among one of the most responsible water users.
CISPE’s policy paper outlines four further areas of recommendation for the Commission.
- Establish a formal EU framework to support industrial water reuse/return that promotes the treatment and reuse of municipal wastewater for non-potable industrial uses, including data centre cooling.
- Create an EU framework for public-private partnerships (PPPs) specifically dedicated to modernising water infrastructure with sustainable funding mechanisms that combine private sector innovation and capital with public sector oversight.
- Develop a policy framework for secure, interoperable cloud-based water solutions and promote the deployment of digital twins and digital sensors in water systems.
- Prevent regulatory duplications by aligning with existing EU frameworks. Adopt a cross-sectoral, holistic approach to water policy that avoids singling out specific industries.
“Water resilience is a pressing issue that should be addressed by the Commission,” said Velimira Bakalova – CISPE’s sustainability policy manager. “But the Commission should also recognise not only the significant work that the sector has done, but its leadership in this area and its potential to deliver and support innovative solutions that will significantly improve water management for the benefit of all.”
The full CISPE policy recommendations can be viewed and downloaded here.