Vantage Data Centers has announced that its second Santa Clara data center (V2) has been awarded LEED Platinum certification.

“V2 is a highly efficient and highly engineered solution which meets the unique needs of our customer. It represents how Vantage is diverging further from an industry that has resisted innovation and that has forced tenants into ‘one size fits all’ products,” said Jim Trout, Vantage Data Centers’ CEO. “What is also gratifying is that our customers share our passion for both operational excellence as well as continued commitment to minimizing their environmental footprint.

LEED certification is offered by U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) as a tool aimed at achieving high performance design and construction of buildings in areas such as human and environmental health. This includes sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. LEED Platinum certification is the highest tier of LEED certification offered by USGBC.

“V2 has been designed to deliver strategic operating advantage for our tenant by providing them a highly reliable, highly scalable operating platform which also allows them to reduce operating costs as their IT footprint grows. V2 has the ability to scale from its current 9MW configuration to 18MW, within the same physical footprint without disruption,” said Trout.

To date, all of Vantage’s facilities have been constructed to meet LEED Platinum requirements and according to Data Center Knowledge, V2 marks only the 13th LEED Platinum certified data center in the world. In August 2011, Vantage announced their first data center, V3, had achieved LEED Platinum certification. Vantage’s third building, V1, is a LEED Platinum candidate and upon successful certification of this building, Vantage’s Santa Clara site will become the largest LEED Platinum data center campus in the U.S.

“The strength of USGBC has always been the collective strength of our leaders in the building industry,” said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO, and Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “Given the extraordinary importance of climate protection and the central role of the building industry in that effort, Vantage Data Centers demonstrates their continued leadership through their LEED certification of V2.”

From the beginning of the V2 project build, Vantage defined a clear vision for the project and set sustainable design performance objectives. Design consultants participated in regular high-performance, integrated design briefings which enabled the team to meet the performance objectives within very tight construction timelines. Vantage’s commitment to building the most sustainable data centers possible resulted in its campus buildings exceeding USGBC requirements for LEED certification and integration of a number of Vantage’s processes and standards into expanded LEED requirements.