On 23 June 2025 the European Commission adopted Implementing Decision C(2025)3871, by which it requested CEN and CENELEC to draft harmonised standards for the high-risk artificial intelligence systems governed by Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the AI Act. Annex I to the decision identifies ten areas: risk management, governance and quality of datasets, record keeping, transparency and information to users, human oversight, accuracy, robustness, cybersecurity, quality management system and conformity assessment (European Commission). None of them concerns the consumption of energy or other resources. Article 40(2) of the Regulation, by contrast, provides that the request for standardisation, the standardisation request in the Commission’s terminology, shall also include deliverables devoted to this subject. The gap between the text of the Regulation and the content of the request is the right starting point for understanding what the AI Act actually requires in terms of energy efficiency and what, at present, is missing.
The text of Article 40(2): two distinct subjects
The first subparagraph of paragraph 2 requires the Commission to issue, without undue delay, standardisation requests covering all the requirements of Chapter III, Section 2, and, as applicable, the obligations of providers of general-purpose models. It then adds: “The standardisation request shall also ask for deliverables on reporting and documentation processes to improve AI systems’ resource performance, such as reducing the high-risk AI system’s consumption of energy and of other resources during its lifecycle, and on the energy-efficient development of general-purpose AI models” (EUR-Lex).
The sentence calls for three observations. The first concerns its object: the legislator speaks of standardisation deliverables and not of harmonised standards; in Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 a “European standardisation deliverable” is “any other technical specification than a European standard” adopted by a European standardisation organisation (EUR-Lex). The second concerns its content: what is requested are reporting and documentation processes, not consumption thresholds or minimum performance levels. The AI Act requires resource consumption to be documented and reported, not kept within predetermined limits. The third concerns its scope: the sentence brings together two different subjects, the lifecycle of the high-risk system and the development of general-purpose models, which are subject to distinct regimes under the Regulation.
A systematic point should be added. Among the requirements of Chapter III, Section 2, contained in Articles 9 to 15, there is no requirement relating to the consumption of energy or resources. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of 8 July 2026, the Digital Omnibus on AI, added a new subparagraph to paragraph 2, devoted to standardisation deliverables facilitating joint compliance with the harmonisation legislation listed in Annex I, and left the sentence on energy efficiency unchanged (EUR-Lex).
Request C(2025)3871: ten areas and a general reference to the environment
The June 2025 decision replaces the earlier Decision C(2023)3215, adopted when the Regulation was still a proposal, sets 31 August 2025 as the deadline for drafting the standards and provides that the decision itself expires on 28 February 2027 (European Commission). Apart from a general mention in recital 7, according to which harmonised standards contribute to a high level of protection of health, safety and the environment, the only reference to the environment is found among the general requirements of Annex II, which asks that the standards contribute to the public policy objectives of the Regulation, among which the protection of the environment appears alongside health, safety and fundamental rights (European Commission). The Commission’s page on AI Act standardisation, updated on 3 August 2026, lists the same ten areas (European Commission).
The wording of Article 40 is in the indicative mood and describes a content of the request, not an option for the Commission. In our view, therefore, the second sentence of Article 40(2) has not yet been reflected in the standardisation request currently in force. Recital 121 of the Regulation, moreover, calls for a balanced representation of interests in the development of standards, expressly including “environmental and social stakeholders” (EUR-Lex): the environmental dimension is thus present in the method envisaged by the legislator, even where it is absent from the object of the request.
General-purpose models: declared consumption and the 2028 report
For general-purpose models the Regulation already contains a documentation obligation. Annex XI, Section 1, point 2(e), includes in the technical documentation the “known or estimated energy consumption of the model” and specifies that, where the consumption is unknown, it may be based on information about the computational resources used (EUR-Lex). The Regulation thus explicitly accepts estimation in place of measurement. On the relationship between these obligations and the voluntary instrument designed to fulfil them, we refer to our analysis of the code of practice for GPAI models.
On the standardisation side, Article 112(6) provides that by 2 August 2028 and every four years thereafter the Commission shall submit a report on the progress made in developing standardisation deliverables on the energy-efficient development of general-purpose models, and assess the need for further measures or actions, “including binding measures or actions” (EUR-Lex). Two elements deserve attention. The legislator anticipated from the outset that the route of voluntary standardisation might not suffice, and reserved to the Commission the assessment of binding instruments. Furthermore, the 2028 review concerns only general-purpose models, not high-risk systems, for which the Regulation provides no specific report on standardisation deliverables relating to resources.
The state of play: what emerges from public sources
The public work programme of the joint technical committee CEN-CENELEC JTC 21 includes a draft European standard, prEN 18287, entitled “Requirements and guidance for the environmental impact evaluation of artificial intelligence systems and services”, shown with the status “Under Approval” and with an expected voting date of 13 July 2027 (CEN-CENELEC). The project does not fall within the ten areas of the request. Since Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 defines a harmonised standard as “a European standard adopted on the basis of a request made by the Commission for the application of Union harmonisation legislation” (EUR-Lex), we consider that a European standard on this subject, for as long as it is not covered by a request, may be applied on a voluntary basis but cannot be published in the Official Journal as a harmonised standard for the purposes of the AI Act. A distinction already encountered in relation to the Italian adoption of ISO/IEC 42001 applies here: the EN designation attests adoption as a European standard, not the status of harmonised standard.
At international level, subcommittee ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42 published in July 2025 technical report ISO/IEC TR 20226:2025, which provides an overview of the environmental sustainability aspects of AI systems across their lifecycle and of the related potential metrics (ISO). It is an informative document, not a set of requirements. As for the harmonised standards in the ten areas, the Commission indicates that the first are expected in 2026 (European Commission); the first to reach the public consultation stage (enquiry), on 30 October 2025, was the one on the quality management system, prEN 18286.
We consider measurement to be the precondition of any credible energy efficiency policy. What is not recorded according to a shared method cannot be compared across different providers, nor improved verifiably over time.
Critical aspects: a presumption that does not cover what the standard does not address
The first aspect concerns metrics. An energy efficiency requirement without shared metrics remains a declaration. Two providers declaring the consumption of their system may be referring to different perimeters: the training phase alone or use as well, the computing hardware alone or the data centre infrastructure as well, a measured value or an estimated one. At installation level there are reporting obligations and established indicators for data centres, which we examined when discussing the energy bill of artificial intelligence; at the level of the individual AI system, however, European standardisation is still defining the method.
The second aspect concerns the presumption of conformity. Article 40(1) grants it to systems that comply with harmonised standards “to the extent that those standards cover those requirements or obligations” (EUR-Lex). The presumption follows the perimeter of the standard and the perimeter of the requirement: since Articles 9 to 15 contain no energy efficiency requirement, conformity with the harmonised standards in the ten areas will say nothing about the energy efficiency of the system.
The third aspect concerns timing. Decision C(2025)3871 expires on 28 February 2027, whereas Chapter III, Sections 1, 2 and 3, will apply from 2 December 2027 to Annex III systems and from 2 August 2028 to Annex I systems, according to the timetable redrawn by the Digital Omnibus (EUR-Lex). We consider that the revision of the request, which that expiry date will in any event place on the agenda, is the opportunity to give effect to the second sentence of Article 40(2).
Conclusions
At present, the AI Act imposes no energy efficiency requirement on providers of high-risk systems: it asks the Commission to obtain from standardisation the tools to document and report resource consumption, and asks providers of general-purpose models to state their known or estimated energy consumption. The standardisation request currently in force does not cover the environmental part of Article 40, the European project on environmental impact evaluation is proceeding outside it, and the first review provided for by the Regulation, in 2028, concerns general-purpose models only. Implementation of the request and the 2028 report therefore remain with the Commission, while the definition of metrics remains with the standardisation bodies. For providers, documenting consumption from now on, stating method, perimeter and degree of estimation, is the most prudent choice: it makes comparable data available once metrics are shared, without having to reconstruct after the event what was not recorded.
Author: Valentina Grazia Sapuppo
