Data center design consultants, analyst firms and industry groups have lobbied the U.S. Green Building Council to develop a data center standard for its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system for green buildings. But to no avail: USGBC has no plans to address data center facilities. The current LEED rating system does not address the particular needs of the data center environment — you don’t get LEED points for operating your data center efficiently, but you can get one for a bike rack — old news.

Nonetheless, more companies are looking for ways to score points on corporate social responsibility checklists, and municipalities and governments are turning to USGBC’s LEED and mandating it as a design standard. The metric is available, and people get it — imperfect or not.

The LEED system is based on several “green” practices, and if you do things right you get points. So why not copy the LEED format which has been widely accepted and apply it to data centers? Give data centers three points for using server virtualization for server consolidation, three points for implementing blanking panels and sealing off bypass airflow.

Some groups like the Green Grid are looking into this type of points system for the future. Is this something that will work? What are the drawbacks?

While it looks like IT-centric organizations are going to be forced to reinvent the wheel with the green data center certification, it may not be too late to get USGBC on board. Where IT organizations haven’t had much luck lobbying USGBC, you might. End users that are looking into LEED-certified data center facilities need to put pressure on the organization as well.

Check out our LEED data center articles:

UPDATE: I was talking to Joe Prisco from IBM this week and he has developed a points-based system for determining data center energy efficiency or green-ness. His checklist (and how to use it) will be published in the December issue of the ASHRAE journal magazine. Keep your eyes out for that in your mailbox, and we’ll try to get a link to an electronic copy up as soon as it is available. Prisco hopes the USGBC or The Green Grid will adopt his recommendations and ASHRAE may publish a book in the future on his work.