The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) has partnered with Data Centres Australia (DCA) to launch a new Sustainable Data Centres program, aimed at defining best practice standards for the design, construction, and operation of facilities in Australia. The initiative will bring together developers, operators, and industry stakeholders to develop guidance covering energy, water, circularity, and community impacts, as the sector grapples with the rapid expansion of AI-driven infrastructure.
The move signals a shift toward more formalised, industry-wide sustainability frameworks in Australia’s data centre sector – an area that has historically relied on a mix of operator-led initiatives and the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) energy rating scheme.
A more structured sustainability framework
The program will initially focus on developing an issues paper and working with pilot projects, before progressing toward formal guidance and potential certification pathways under GBCA’s Green Star framework. GBCA said the initiative is intended to define what “best practice” looks like for data centres in an Australian context, taking into account local climate conditions, grid constraints, and water availability.
“Data centres are critical to Australia’s future – but their environmental and social impact is growing just as fast as their demand,” the organisation said in its submission to the current NSW data centre inquiry. The council noted that managing this growth will require a combination of planning controls, minimum standards, and industry-led frameworks.
Complementing NABERS
The partnership is expected to sit alongside existing frameworks such as NABERS Energy for Data Centres, which remains the primary operational benchmarking tool in Australia. GBCA explicitly backed continued development of NABERS in its submission, including support for a forthcoming water rating tool, arguing that consistent national benchmarks are “essential” for improving performance across the sector.
While NABERS focuses on measured operational performance, the GBCA program is likely to extend further upstream into design and construction standards, embodied carbon and materials, site selection and planning considerations, and broader ESG factors, including community and biodiversity impacts. This creates the potential for a more comprehensive framework covering the full lifecycle of data centre development.
Industry-led approach reflects sector dynamics
The initiative has been developed in partnership with DCA, which said it represents the majority of Australia’s data centre capacity, and is seeking additional participants across the supply chain, including developers, contractors, and investors. DCA CEO Belinda Dennett said the partnership reflects the need for standards to evolve alongside the rapid scaling of AI infrastructure.
“The scale and complexity of AI infrastructure is changing rapidly, and we want to make sure our standards evolve with it,” she said.
GBCA CEO Davina Rooney (above) added that the program will be tailored to Australian conditions rather than adopting international benchmarks wholesale.
Policy alignment emerging in NSW debate
The launch comes as sustainability and infrastructure impacts of data centres are under increasing scrutiny in New South Wales. In its submission to the inquiry, GBCA highlighted the need for high energy efficiency standards, greater integration with renewable energy investment, consideration of embodied carbon in construction, improved transparency around energy and water use, and planning frameworks that balance local impacts such as noise and land use.
The organisation also acknowledged that data centres can place significant demand on electricity and water systems, noting that a single large facility can require as much electricity as “thousands of homes.”
A step toward industry-wide standards
For developers and operators, the program represents an early attempt to formalise sustainability expectations in a sector that is scaling rapidly but remains fragmented in how performance is defined and measured – an issue not only faced by Australia.
If adopted broadly, the combination of NABERS for operational performance and GBCA-led frameworks for design, construction, and ESG could provide a more consistent set of benchmarks for investors, regulators and communities. However, the effectiveness of the initiative will depend on industry uptake and whether it translates into measurable standards rather than voluntary guidance.