Commercial, Demand Management, Energy Efficiency, Industrial  -  November 20, 2017

Microsoft commits to LEED Gold for data centers

Continuing toward an end-goal of making its energy-hungry data centers more sustainable, Mircosoft recently made the commitment to pursue LEED Gold certification for its entire portfolio of owned data centers. 

The tech company went a step further in pledging to do so under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED volume program. In a Nov. 8 blog post, Christian Belady, general manager of Microsoft Cloud infrastructure and operations said the company worked with USBGC to create a standardized set of design and expected performance criteria that will serve as a blueprint for Microsoft and others to build and certify greener, more efficient data centers. 

Belady wrote: 

By building our new owned datacenters and certifying our existing owned datacenters to this standard, we expect to save energy, water, resources, generate less waste and support human health. And we are proud to pave the way for other datacenter providers to do the same, by using this more efficient model for achieving LEED Gold.

The design commitment came just a week before Microsoft made a splash at the United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany, announcing a new commitment to reduce its operational carbon emissions 75% by 2030 against a 2013 baseline.

Microsoft said it plans to reach that target by continuing its progress toward carbon neutrality and renewable energy use. In a blog post, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said the commitment puts the company "on a path as a company, to meet the goals set in the Paris climate agreement, which is a level of decarbonization that many scientists believe is necessary to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius."

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