Adopting standards at the very beginning pays dividends through whole life of building

Dublin, Ireland – March, 31, 2009 – Sustainability, reduced running costs and increased long term building value are among the reasons that Digital Realty Trust, the world’s largest wholesale datacentre provider, is adopting the newly announced BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) Bespoke datacentre standards for the future construction of its datacentres.

BREEAM Bespoke was first developed in 2000 to cover buildings not included in the mainstream environmental assessment schemes for offices, retail, healthcare and education.

Paul Gibbon, Director of Sustainability, BRE Global, said: “We are seeing a rise in interest in assessments for specialist building types, especially datacentres. Over the first 12 months of the datacentre scheme we will be refining it with feedback from actual assessments and in time this ‘scheme’ will become part of the standard suite for BREEAM.

“The advantage of scheme development using the framework of BREEAM Bespoke is that it reduces the cost of assessments and provides a ready made set of criteria against which developers, designers and clients can assess their buildings,” he added.

Jim Smith, Chief Technology Officer for Digital Realty Trust, said, “Adopting the BREEAM standards right at the beginning of the initial design stages will not only build in reduced running costs because the building’s insulation and cooling will be optimised, but in the longer term the value of the building can be expected to be higher than a comparable building which is not BREEAM accredited.

“The BREEAM certification process has tremendous value for the datacentre industry and we are adopting its guidelines as best practices for the way we design, build and operate datacentres around the world. This is the latest in a long list of industry firsts that Digital Realty Trust has achieved for energy efficiency and environmental responsibility in the datacentre field, and we are very proud to be leading the way in green datacentres,” he continued.

“We were the first company to achieve similar certification for a datacentre in the United States, the first company to adopt the Green Grid's PUE energy efficiency measurement protocol, and the first company to publicly publish energy efficiency data about its facilities. We also contribute a significant portion of our time to industry efforts to establish green datacentre standards, and to educating datacentre professionals about how to increase energy efficiency.”

Early BREEAM assessment standards for datacentres were carried out as part of Digital Realty Trust developing a facility for a major financial institute which was completed late in 2008 which achieved an Excellent rating.  The datacentre uses a unique heat recovery system which results in energy savings of up to 83 percent compared to conventional gas fired boilers.  It also uses a building automation system which responds to changing atmospheric conditions making the most of when the ambient temperature is low.