Symantec's Oregon Site Lands LEED Gold Rating

Symantec’s Oregon facility has been certified as a green building with a gold rating under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. It's the second time that the firm has earned the ranking for one of its sites.

The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the rating to the Symantec facility in Springfield under the LEED parameters for Existing Buildings; Operations and Maintenance. The earlier gold rating, under the LEED standards for new construction, went to the company’s Culver City campus last year.

A gold ranking is the second highest in LEED’s five-tier green building rating system, which range from basic certification to platinum status.

Symantec said the Oregon site attained its certification by cutting energy and water use and increasing recycling. Other attributes that were deemed eco-friendly included the use of rapidly renewable bamboo flooring, natural lighting in 99 percent of the interior, Energy Star equipment, recycled paper, native plants for landscaping, and locally grown and organic food in the company cafe.

In announcing its LEED Gold certification last week, the security and utilities vendor based in Cupertino, Calif., also said it joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders, the partnership program between the agency and companies to develop and support climate change strategies.

Companies participating in the program must commit to reducing their environmental impact, inventory the greenhouse gas emissions for their entire business operation, set tough goals to reduce their carbon footprint and annually report on progress to the EPA.

In its most recent corporate responsibility report, Symantec said it had completed a global greenhouse gas inventory; set a target of reducing CO2 emissions 15 percent by the end of fiscal year 2012, using emissions in FY 2008 as a baseline; and set goals of meeting LEED standards for all existing buildings and new construction.

Symantec’s announcement followed news of Digital Realty Trust’s second LEED Gold rating for a data center. Digital Realty’s first gold rating went to a data center in Chicago in 2007, and the most recent went to a data center in Santa Clara.

Earning data center green building certifications are particularly challenging because of the amount energy needed to power and cool the facilities.

With help from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a coalition of groups is asking the U.S. Green Building Council for LEED certification standards for data centers and is developing criteria for the council to consider.s

In a survey released last month, Symantec said the movement to green IT is gaining ground around the world -- and not only to cut costs. Implementing best practices for a range of functions from power management to virtualization and achieving corporate sustainability goals were among the reasons respondents cited for greater interest in making IT more environmentally responsible.