By USGBCMA Communications, More Green Buildings!
The LEED Earth campaign was created by USGBC to accelerate the uptake of green building and LEED throughout the world. This campaign offers LEED certification at no cost to the first LEED-certified project in countries that have yet to adopt LEED. It also offers certification at no cost to the first LEED Platinum certified project in any country using the newest version of LEED (v4), which was recently the case in India.
The ITC Sankya Data Center is the first LEED v4 Platinum building in India, and the first data center in the world to achieve this level of certification.
Data centers have very few occupants and can consume as much energy as a small town, making for a unique project. Data centers must have massive cooling capacity for their servers, and reducing water usage is important for data centers that use it for cooling purposes.
ITC is a Kolkota-based conglomerate that has been spearheading green building leadership and LEED adoption in India for years. In fact, ITC is the first hotel chain in India to incorporate green as a business strategy: all of its LEED-certified luxury hotels have achieved Platinum certification.
To date, four countries have their first LEED v4 Platinum buildings: India, China, Mexico and Canada. The countries to have their first LEED certified building are: Burundi, Croatia, Ecuador, Honduras, Kuwait, Latvia, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Serbia, South Sudan, Ukraine, Tanzania, Bolivia, Lithuania, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Ghana, Myanmar and Venezuela and were among LEED Earth participants.
“There are 160 countries and territories currently using LEED,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, chief operating officer of USGBC and president of Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI). “LEED Earth has become a catalyst for other countries where green building is not as prevalent and is an important first step in changing the course of building practice to one that is more sustainable and for markets that are more advanced in this space, we congratulate you on your continued leadership. LEED ON!”
If you are interested in reading the full articles, please visit:
LEED Earth Project Pioneers: India's first LEED v4 Platinum building
LEED Earth Participant ITC Sankhya Data Center First LEED v4 Platinum Building in India
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