Start Campus Data Centre Achieves LEED Gold Certification
Start Campus' first operational facility at its SINES Data Campus, SIN01, has achieved a certification at gold tier from one of the world's most widely recognised standards for sustainable building design and construction.
SIN01 is the first building within the 1.2GW SINES Data Campus, a hyperscale development designed to support the next generation of cloud and AI-scale digital infrastructure.
The certification in question is LEED Gold BD+C v4, awarded by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI). Inéria, LEED's consultancy partner, also supported the process.
The success of a project is measured by its energy efficiency, water usage, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. SIN01 achieved 75 points, placing it at the upper range of the LEED Gold certification tier.
The 1.2GW campus, which is currently Europe's largest AI data centre, uses 100% renewable energy and seawater cooling, having also recently announced their partnership with Energias De Portugal (EDP) for its broader sustainability goals.
How SIN01 achieved the certification
The data centre achieved a BD+C certification, standing for Building Design and Construction, meaning its sustainability has been observed and measured from the earliest stages of its development.
SIN01 demonstrated various sustainability factors to its evaluators, including how it had advanced energy optimisation designed for AI-density workloads, which require more energy than non-automated data centres.
It has sea-water cooling systems engineered to significantly reduce water consumption and the sourcing of its sustainable materials are supported by Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
The data centre also has high-durability specifications extending asset lifecycle performance and high indoor environmental quality (IEQ) standards supporting workforce wellbeing.
While Start Campus' sustainability strategy is built on four pillars: Community, Planet, Industry and Company, its circular economy principles are also aligned with 13 of the 17 United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.
A benchmark for sustainable digital infrastructure
SIN01 stood out to evaluators because it embeds environmental performance from the earliest stages of developments and the whole lifecycle of its AI-scale digital infrastructure.
The BD+C certification establishes SIN01 as a benchmark for the sustainable architecture of data centres in Europe which reinforces Start Campus' broader missions to scale compute capacity while minimising environmental impact across the full asset lifecycle.
Its Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) is 0, as it harnesses the cooling power of the ocean. Start Campus currently has the goal of achieving Net Zero Water across the entire campus as it is built out, with the aim to fully eliminate reliance on freshwater resources.
Renewable energy partnerships
The partnership between Start Campus and EDP, announced on 25 February, comes as Start Campus works on its broader sustainability goals, and reveals
The agreement states that Start Campus' has chosen EDP as its preferred long-term partner for clean energy, with the two companies working together on commercial, technical and strategic solutions for new renewables, as digital infrastructure faces a demand for large-scale computing and AI integration.
"By aligning Start Campus' platform vision with EDP's energy leadership and global experience supporting hyperscale digital infrastructure, we are laying the foundations for an integrated approach to digital growth – starting in Sines and extending across the country – that supports customers, strengthens the energy system and delivers sustainable economic value," said Robert Dunn, CEO of Start Campus.
Another partnership between Start Campus and Schneider Electric led to the creation of SIN01 itself, in addition to SIN02 through to SIN06 in the entire data centre. Through Start Campus' sustainability goals and Schneider Electric's infrastructure solutions, the partnership created a 100% renewable energy data centre, which has now been awarded at gold standard from its design and construction to its operations.
