EU bids farewell to 2022 with a host of resiliency regulations

European Union (EU) regulators wrapped up 2022 with new legislation introducing stricter requirements for data center operators. Four major regulations were passed (with strong majorities) in the European Parliament — most of these having been proposed less than two years ago. These laws — governing the reporting of organizations’ climate change risks — will apply primarily to infrastructure providers supporting financial services firms, organizations that authorities deem essential to the functioning of the economy and society, and medium-sized and major enterprises (see Table 1).

With effect from 2024/2025, organizations covered by these regulations will have to comply with resiliency audits and new incident reporting frameworks: key operational sustainability information will now become publicly available, as a result. These new regulations will, inevitably, cover the digital infrastructures that these organizations rely on. In addition to this, the proposed Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) recast is expected to pass in early 2023, creating further challenges for the industry.