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ACT Data Center: First LEED® Platinum Level Certification in the U.S.

August 10, 2009

IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT announced today that its new data center has been awarded LEED Platinum level certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The building is the first publicly announced LEED Platinum certified data center in the nation. In addition, the data center is the first LEED Platinum certified building of any type in Iowa. Platinum is the highest level of LEED certification.

LEED is the USGBC's leading rating system for designing and constructing the world's greenest, most energy efficient, and highest performing buildings. ACT considers the use of LEED sustainable design guidelines for this project to be an extension and demonstration of its commitment to conscientious citizenship.

"ACT's Board of Directors supported the LEED design approach and challenged ACT staff to achieve a gold or platinum certification," said ACT CEO Dick Ferguson. "Given that a data center had not previously achieved a gold or platinum level, this was a lofty goal."

Computer-based technology is critical to ACT's mission and success. The data center infrastructure has to be secure and reliable enough to withstand a natural disaster and flexible enough to allow for future growth. Sustainability drove the project. A design-build team focused on resiliencies and redundancies.

"Sustainability was the name of the game for this project, both environmental sustainable design and the ability of the data center to sustain a disaster. The most gratifying aspect of the project is that none of the sustainable design strategies diminish the building's ability to perform its primary functions," said ACT Assistant Vice President of Central Services Tom Struve. "In fact, several of the sustainable traits actually aid in the building's value and functionality."

A great example is ACT's energy-efficient geothermal system which is unique among data centers. Geothermal has traditionally not been compatible with data centers, since they constantly reject heat and would quickly heat saturate the ground. Project engineers developed an innovative design that made geothermal viable for ACT's data center.

Geothermal also provides an extremely resilient system because the heat transfer loops are buried in the ground and the remainder of the equipment resides within the tornado resistant facility. As a result, the system provides a cooling source that is fully protected from 250 mph wind speed, projectiles, and vandalism. Further, a separate highly energy efficient system incorporating dry coolers provides redundancy for the primary geothermal loop. The dry cooler system can be used as backup or when cold Iowa outdoor conditions make using it more efficient than using the ground-source system.

"Building operations are nearly 40% of the solution to the global climate change challenge," said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO and founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council. "While climate change is a global problem, innovative companies like ACT are addressing it through local solutions."

Neumann Monson Architects President Kevin Monson is a firm believer in LEED objectives and said they are critical for the future.

"I think the excitement we feel for sustainability is that it adds a whole new dimension to architecture," he said. "Buildings need to function well, they should be beautiful, but there also is a responsibility in building structures that are ecologically friendly. We embrace this. When clients like ACT embrace sustainability, we not only build a building, but we do it extremely well."

LEED certification is based on a number of green design and construction features that positively impact the project itself and the broader community. These features include:

Among other features, the ACT data center contains:

"The success of a LEED project is heavily dependent on assembling just the right team—a team which communicates and works effectively together," added Struve. "ACT was extremely fortunate to have such a team."

The ACT data center was designed by Neumann Monson Architects in Iowa City, KJWW Engineering Consultants' Des Moines office, and McComas-Lacina Construction in Iowa City. In addition, MMS Civil Engineering Consultants of Iowa City provided both civil engineering and landscape consulting.

The design-build approach helped to achieve LEED certification for energy use, lighting, water and material use and incorporated a variety of other sustainable strategies. LEED verifies environmental performance, occupant health and financial return. LEED was established for market leaders to design and construct buildings that protect and save precious resources while also making good economic sense.

About the U.S. Green Building Council
The U.S. Green Building Council is a nonprofit membership organization whose vision is a sustainable built environment within a generation. Its membership includes corporations, builders, universities, government agencies, and other nonprofit organizations. Since UGSBC's founding in 1993, the Council has grown to more than 17,000 member companies and organizations, a comprehensive family of LEED® green building rating systems, an expansive educational offering, the industry's popular Greenbuild International Conference and Expo (www.greenbuildexpo.org), and a network of 78 local chapters, affiliates, and organizing groups. For more information, visit www.usgbc.org.

About LEED®
The LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™ is a feature-oriented rating system that awards buildings points for satisfying specified green building criteria. The six major environmental categories of review include: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality and Innovation and Design. Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels of LEED green building certification are awarded based on the total number of points earned within each LEED category. LEED can be applied to all building types including new construction, commercial interiors, core & shell developments, existing buildings, homes, neighborhood developments, schools and retail facilities. LEED for Healthcare is currently under development and is expected to be released in early 2008. For more information, visit www.usgbc.org/LEED.