In April 2026, four Dutch government data centres completed the first phase of the Sustainable Government Data Centres project (Verduurzamen Overheidsdatacenters). The work runs under the Netherlands' Directorate-General for Government CIO and Digitalisation Policy (formerly CIO Rijk), and the results were published by Digitale Overheid on 28 July 2026. Interact was the external party that audited the servers.

We audited nearly 3,800 servers across the four data centres and identified opportunities to improve server efficiency. The analysis found the servers performing well to very well.

Age is not a reliable guide to efficiency

One result stood out in the published findings. Server age was not a reliable predictor of server efficiency. Nine-year-old servers sometimes scored at least as well as two-year-old servers.

The project drew a practical conclusion from this: it opens the door to smarter lifecycle management, because a server can sometimes be used for longer without compromising performance. It is also the point we make on every estate. Efficiency is a property of the actual configuration and how it runs, and it has to be measured.

Room for further savings

The analysis also identified headroom. By using server capacity more efficiently and planning replacements more intelligently, the project estimated savings over five years of around 2,674 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, 11.7 million kWh of energy, and more than €2 million in energy costs. (Figures published by Digitale Overheid.)

Why it matters

Government data centres sit underneath services people use every day, such as DigiD, tax returns, and the control of bridges and locks. They are also growing consumers of power: according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), Dutch data centres accounted for 4.6% of national electricity consumption in 2024. As regulation tightens, estates need better insight into energy use, water use, renewable energy and waste heat.

The collaboration between the four data centres was described as one of the most important results of the first phase. In April 2026 the government's CIO Council backed the project's five recommendations for the next phase, including measuring sustainability more effectively.

ODC-Noord, one of the four data centres in the project, is the subject of one of our case studies: ODC-Noord: driving IT performance.

Read the Dutch government's write-up: Samen op weg naar meer duurzame overheidsdatacenters.