Not as green as Fannie Mae's. In August the famous home lender opened its Urbana Technology Center, the world's first LEED-certified data center. Short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED is maintained by the U.S. Green Building Council and comes in half a dozen flavors (there's an LEED system for new construction, existing buildings, homes, and so on). Each flavor has metrics for saving water, making the air you breathe cleaner, and using less power.
Today more and more firms are using LEED, and even some that don't are still building data centers that sustain, not pollute, their surroundings. Take Reuters, whose Geneva center relies on "blue" (or hydroelectric) power and wind power to stay online. Because the electric bill is often the data center's biggest cost, eco-friendly design is gaining friends that include architects, IT experts, and even the occasional accountant.
Eco-Friendly, Data-Safe
Fannie Mae's Urbana building was built with an eye toward the environment. But it was also built with a rock-solid plan for data safety. Joseph Lauro, an architect at Gensler, which designed the Fannie Mae building, says green design did not make the IT crew see red. "We could not at all impact negatively what the client requirements were, and that was to have a fully operational data center under all circumstances."
Even with those restrictions, Lauro and the Gensler team found dozens of ways to make the Urbana center a safe one for the environment. A synthetic white rubber roof helps reduce the Heat Island Effect, and all the mechanical and electrical systems are rated for optimal efficiency. Paint and carpeting are low-VOC (volatile organic compound), and countertops are made of recycled products. In fact, 80% of the project's construction waste was recycled, too.
But that's just the start. Drought-tolerant plants conserve water on the building's grounds, as does an irrigation system that captures rain and saves 13,000 gallons of city water per day. Fannie Mae also offers its workers a shuttle from its Washington, D.C., headquarters to reduce traffic to the building. And carpools get the best parking spots.
Lauro's team paid special attention to natural light, which not only cuts energy costs but gives employees a nicer workspace. About 90% of employees have outside views, because Gensler cleverly designed the building with its workstations on the perimeter and an office block with transparent fronts at the core.
Why Go Green?
Of course, not all green IT efforts are as large as Fannie Mae's. Take California's AISO.net, short for Affordable Internet Services Online. It's Web hosting with a conscience.
According to Phil Nail, one of AISO's data center managers, this shared- and managed-hosting firm chose an all-metal building to save wood and relies on solar power to keep the data center off the electrical grid. The result? The company's energy costs are a fraction of most data centers'. And it'll never worry about blackouts and brownouts, an edge that gives customers peace of mind. "We [also] used eco-friendly insulation in our walls," says Nail. "That's helped to reduce the cost of our air conditioning units."
In fact, cost savings can drive eco-friendly design, because wind and solar power can alleviate high electric bills. "The fact of the matter is that you're losing less energy, and energy equals cost," says Gensler's Lauro.
There are also tax incentives for eco-friendly design that vary by state (California, where AISO does business, is in the vanguard). But green IT can also help you drive profits. According to Nail, AISO.net receives calls from as far away as Kenya, all from customers who like to do business with eco-friendly firms.
Getting Started
So how do you start? It's better to build from scratch, of course, because you have complete control over the design. But even data centers in existing buildings can "go green" by taking small steps to reduce heat, add light, and nix their use of toxic chemicals.
"One of the things is using EnergyStar as a guideline," says Lauro. He points clients to Liebert and other equipment makers whose equipment bears the EnergyStar seal.
You can also change your paint and carpeting to low-VOC versions or use energy-efficient windows, skylights, and skytubes to reduce that awful fluorescent glare that employees hate. If solar power is an unknown or confusing option, just follow Nail's advice: "Just look in the phone book under solar panels. It's that simple."
Special Equipment
SunFire's new T1000 server offers multithreaded performance (Sun claims it can triple your data center's speed), which infrastructure types will like. But accountants will like its eco-friendly design, because its CoolThreads technology cuts power consumption by as much as 30%. In fact, the T1000 runs on just 70 watts, which is less than most lightbulbs.
One of the most toxic elements in your data center is the foam in your fire-suppression system. In contrast, FM-200 Fire Protection from Great Lakes Chemical was the first submitted for an EPA SNAP listing: It can save your equipment and your lungs at the same time.
And there are dozens of other products that can make a data center more eco-friendly (see the sidebar). What matters most is your commitment to the process. Gensler made a promise to look at eco-friendly design "before LEED was a popular program," says Lauro.
You may share that commitment. But if your CEO, CFO, and others don't, remind them that tighter controls over power, heat, and water can make them see green in dollars saved. For most, that's a big enough reason to be friendly to eco-friendly design.
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