NTT America announced on Wednesday that the U.S. Green Building Council awarded LEED Gold certification to its data center in Ashburn, Va. The company occupies one of three pods in the Digital Realty Trust facility. The certification was issued to the entire structure, said NTT VP of Data Center Infrastructure Tarif Abboushi.

USGBC awarded the certificate about two weeks ago. The organization issues LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificates to buildings that are energy- and water-efficient and are built using sustainable building practices. The system is recognized internationally.

NTT opened the Ashburn facility last October. The company uses the data center to provide colocation and managed services. "We've only recently installed our first customer there," Abboushi said. "We still have quite a bit of selling to do into this space."

The data center receives 2.25 MW of power, houses 17,500 square feet of raised floor and features diverse network providers. It is linked to the company's larger data center (50,000 square feet) in the nearby city of Sterling, Va.

Abboushi said the Ashburn facility meets the Uptime Institute's concurrent maintainability criteria.

While using typical data center characteristics, such as power and network infrastructure, when looking for a data center facility, NTT also asked DRT whether the REIT was going to apply for LEED certification for the building. The answer was affirmative and played a role in the company's decision to occupy the pod.

NTT America is a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation, which in turn is the data and IP services wing of the Japan-based telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. NTT Communications operates data centers in North America, Europe and Asia.