April 24, 2009 -- Citi announced that its newly completed Citi Data Centre in Frankfurt has earned the coveted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum rating from the US Green Building Council (USGBC). This is the highest achievable award for new construction (V2.2 category).
The LEED Rating System is designed to encourage and facilitate the development of more sustainable buildings and is a leading edge system for certifying the world's greenest buildings. The award certifies the data center's unique achievement in regard to sustainability and energy efficiency.
"Citi is committed to ensuring that sustainability lies at the heart of all our major projects and a major new data center was no different," said John Killey, head of Citi Realty Services EMEA. "For this project a balanced approach was adopted that recognised Citi's commitment to a sustainable approach for the building without compromise to its operation and reliability."
"Close co-operation between our Real Estate and Technology groups has been important to achieving major advances in the way in which we manage technology energy demand in Citi," said Stephen Ellis Head of Citi technology infrastructure EMEA. "The energy efficient design of the data center, coupled with extensive use of new, energy efficient virtualized technology, housed in innovative modular cabinets has optimized energy use and reduced the data cabling needs."
"Building operations are nearly 40% of the solution to the global climate change challenge," says Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and founding chair, U.S. Green Building Council. "While climate change is a global problem, innovative firms like Citi are addressing it through local solutions."
This environmentally conscious Citi building had already been honored for its eco-friendly design with the European industry's "Data Center Excellence Green Energy Efficiency Award 2007' and the title of overall Winner at the Financial Services Technology (FTS) Magazine Award 2008.
According to Citi, sustainability during the design, construction and operation phases was a primary consideration in the delivery of the 230,000 sq. ft. building. Its innovative design was executed with no increased cost over more conventional data centers and without adversely affecting reliability and resilience of the systems it houses. Special attention was focused on the significant impacts of energy, water and waste.
Other notable features of the building and data center, according to a press release, include:
-- Uses 30% of the power required for services that a conventional data center would use.
-- Optimized cooling design resulting in enhanced free cooling rate of 63%.
-- Reverse Osmosis water treatment for cooling saves 50M liters per annum.
-- Overall CO2 emissions reduction of 11,750 t/a.
-- Water efficient fixtures has reduced potable water use by 41% as well as utilizing harvested rainwater for 100% of the irrigation needs.
-- 100% of the Construction waste was diverted from the landfill and operational waste is segregated for recycling.
-- Material selection was a high priority item for Citi allowing both the LEED requirements and embodied energy calculations to influence the selection.
-- The recycled content of the materials specified on the project reached 27% with local sourcing of materials exceeding 40%.
-- As an example of local consideration a vegetated roof area has been installed for 72% of the roof area as well as a full green wall irrigated from harvested rainwater.
-- Makes extensive use of virtualized technology, deployed in a modular design which both optimized energy usage and reduced the total amount of cabling required by 250 km.
Other major Citi projects that have received LEED certification include data centers in Singapore and Georgetown, Texas, two Citi office parks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and a 15-story skyscraper in the New York City Borough of Queens.
On the Web:
www.citi.com
www.usgbc.org