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Belgacom is the first Belgian company to subscribe to the European Union’s code of conduct for energy-efficient datacenters. This is intended to limit the increasing consumption of energy by datacenters (and the ecological and economic impact). The code contains a number of clear rules: datacenters must use efficient cooling, old servers must be replaced more rapidly and server use must be optimized through techniques such as virtualization. Also, an annual report must be drawn up on their energy consumption. Belgacom’s datacenters account for 25% of the group’s electricity bill. Thanks to measures such as server virtualization, new cooling systems and the reuse of excess heat for heating the buildings, the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) in 2012 should fall to 1.75. The PUE is the ratio between the total energy consumption in a datacenter and the consumption of the IT equipment. The closer this number is to 1, the better. For companies that wish to have their own datacenter, Belgacom offers the Matrix Cube, a ready-to-use ‘green’ module with a PUE of 1.3 in which the servers can be housed. The Cube is equipped with features such as air-conditioning, power supply (and backup) and access security. All the client needs to supply is the electricity and network connectivity.