The Lucerne-based Swiss Environmental Foundation has presented this year’s Green Business Award to INFOMANIAK NETWORK SA from Geneva, according to a statement. Since 2019, the award has been presented annually to the most innovative Swiss companies that combine environmental impact with economic success. The jury named INFOMANIAK, with its D4 data center, as the most outstanding example of this in 2025.
D4 was officially opened in Geneva on 27 January 2025. INFOMANIAK says the facility addresses several major challenges facing the cloud industry. In conventional data centers, the heat generated by servers must be dissipated using cooling systems. D4, however, captures and reuses this heat as an energy source for the surrounding area. The electricity first powers the servers, while 100 per cent of the resulting heat is then fed into the district heating network. In addition, the data center operates without conventional air conditioning or an external water supply. When it reaches full capacity in 2028, it will be capable of heating up to 6,000 households or providing 20,000 people with five minutes of shower time per day for a year.
“With D4, digital infrastructure becomes part of the local energy supply,” said Cédric Habermacher, director of Green Business Switzerland. “This demonstrates very concretely how an environmental challenge can be transformed into economic and social value.” According to calculations by the Enterprise for Society Center, when operating at full capacity, D4 could avoid 3,600 metric tons of CO2 equivalents annually compared with natural gas heating and 5,500 metric tons compared with wood pellet heating. The data center’s documentation is available in full as open-source material.
“The true value of D4 lies in its replicability, and that is exactly where this award helps us,” said INFOMANIAK founder and CEO Boris Siegenthaler. “We have disclosed all our plans so that others can follow suit, and we thank everyone who believed in this necessary transformation.”
According to Doris Leuthard, a former member of the Swiss government (Federal Councillor) and chair of the jury, it was precisely “this combination of environmental impact, economic benefit, and replicability” that convinced the jury. The award was presented on 3 September at the Maillot Vert summer festival in Lucerne. ce/mm