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  • Hungry for Data: LEED Targets Data Centers

    Authored by: 
    Corey Enck
    Article: 

    Quick: How did you get to our blog? Did you click on a link via Twitter, or see the article pop up in your RSS reader? However you arrived here, you probably used around 180 KB of data to load this webpage.

    Though somewhat intangible, and certainly not of upmost concern to most of us and our rapid-fire browsing, data requires huge amounts of energy to process. Data centers power our appetite for data at all hours of the day. They are the physical embodiments of our everyday data usage – using Google or Yahoo! to search the most recent March Madness upset, posting photos of a recent vacation to Facebook, loading an app on the new iPad 3 – and like every other structure, they can (and should) be built green.

    For that reason, we’ve adapted LEED for New Construction and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance to the particular needs of data centers to ensure that new construction and facility retrofits can successfully pursue and apply LEED.

    What makes data centers such a unique project type? Data centers have very few occupants, and they are huge energy users: a data center can use as much energy as a small town (really). Whereas a typical building is designed to meet heating and cooling needs for occupant comfort, a data center must provide massive cooling power for its servers. Water use is also a key target area for data centers, if the facility utilizes water for cooling. These specific building needs are built in to the data center adaption for LEED.

    Recently, there’s been a surge of LEED-certified data centers: Among them, Facebook, Yahoo!, Internap and QTS. Facebook’s first energy efficient, LEED Gold data center in Prineville, Ore. uses 70 percent less water for cooling purposes than an average data center. Apple’s LEED Platinum data center in Maiden, NC, utilizes outside air cooling so that facility chillers can be turned off 75 percent of the time. All of these projects are leading the way in how we think about this project sector.

    By bringing data centers into the suite of LEED rating systems, we’re removing barriers so that even more data facilities can participate in LEED and build sustainably. Read more about the adaptations for data centers and other market tracks, and be sure to weigh in on these changes to LEED in public comment, now open until Mar. 27.

    Slideshow images: 
    Facebook's LEED-certified data center in Prineville, Ore.

    Quick: How did you get to our blog? Did you click on a link via Twitter, or see the article pop up in your RSS reader? However you arrived here, you probably used around 180 KB of data to load this webpage.

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  • EDC named the Official Magazine for the LEED ® Professional

    Written by Michelle Hucal, LEED AP
    Associate Publisher, EDC

    Troy, Mich. — Environmental Design + Construction (EDC) is pleased to announce that the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has named EDC “The Official Magazine for the LEED® Professional.” This exciting news has developed from a 15-year partnership between EDC and USGBC. EDC will now be available for free to all 96,000+ LEED APs with specialty and LEED Green Associates.

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  • Creating Healthier Classrooms Through Practical Solutions

    It goes without saying, every parent wants their child to be healthy and safe. And teachers too, always have the best interest of our kids at heart. But sometimes what we don’t know can hurt us.

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  • USGBC Orange County Looks To Refine the Green Classroom Concept

    Note: This blog is reposted from THE Journal and was written by Bridget McCrea

    USGBC Looks To Refine the Green Classroom Concept

    One chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council is taking a first step in a wide-scale classroom “greening” project for public K-12 schools nationwide.
    By Bridget McCrea
    03/19/12

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  • Campaign Advocacy Offers a Menu of Policy Options for Chapters and Legislatures

    USGBC’s 2012 advocacy campaign agenda is designed to empower local advocates to advance USGBC public policy priorities in their state capitols and city halls. Each campaign was launched with a suite of supporting resources to make it easier for advocates and includes a campaign brief and draft legislative text.

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  • U.S. Green Building Council Announces the LEED Green Building Program to Recognize Energy Credits from BREEAM

    Announcement is focused on existing buildings and streamlines the building certification process in Europe

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  • May I Borrow Your Jumper Cables?

    Authored by: 
    Lauren Riggs
    Slideshow images: 
    Jumpstarting energy efficiency in older buildings

    “May I borrow some jumper cables?” The brick building asked the building next door. The brick building’s energy use was out of control; It needed to kick-start its efficiency. The building next door answered with Energy Jumpstart, the new pilot prerequisite in USGBC’s Pilot Credit Library. USGBC hopes that this pilot can act as a set of jumper cables to stir up a segment of the buildings market that has the potential to make huge energy efficiency gains.

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  • If You Want to See Change, Head to New Orleans

    This past Monday, Center for Green Schools Director Rachel Gutter and I presented plaques to the first four LEED certified schools in New Orleans. These four schools represented not only a huge accomplishment for the Recovery School District and the city, but also for Louisiana, with these schools being the first in the state to become certified.

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  • Bringing Green Building Outcomes to Affordable Homes

    The benefits of green building – quality, healthy and safe environments that are cost effective – should be available to all. These outcomes are especially critical in affordable housing where studies show that income level segments that rely on affordable housing often pay more in utility and water costs then people of with higher incomes. It’s a problem that needs a solution.

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  • It Doesn’t stop at the LEED Certification Plaque: Why Ongoing Building Performance Tracking Matters

    It has become widely accepted across the commercial real estate world that LEED certification has the potential to add value by presenting a number of benefits including higher rental yields, lower vacancy rates, reduced operating costs and improved employee productivity. The extraordinary growth of LEED over the past decade is clear evidence of this industry-wide understanding.

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