VIRTUS Data Centres' locations have achieved a series of accreditations including BREEAM ‘Excellent’ Standard for Data Centres, and ISO standards across quality, environmental management, information security and energy management. The new accreditations reinforce VIRTUS’ commitment to analysing, benchmarking and improving its business using industry recognised bodies in the areas of quality, security, environmental, sustainability, service availability and energy management.
BREEAM Standards for Data Centres are a set of design and operational criteria that cover the lifecycle of a building from the ‘cradle to the grave’. The standards create the benchmark for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation and have become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building's environmental performance. Virtus is in a select group of companies that have achieved the ‘Excellent’ standard, which demonstrates ‘best practice’ and places LONDON2 in the top 10 per cent of new ‘non-domestic’ buildings in the UK.
BREEAM encourages designers and operators to think about low carbon and low impact design, minimising the energy demands created by a building – before considering low carbon technologies. Covering a broad range of categories and criteria from energy to ecology, achieving BREEAM certification demonstrates VIRTUS on-going obligation to sustainability across a wide range of aspects including energy and water use, pollution, transport, materials, waste, health and well-being.
Additionally, VIRTUS has further enhanced its operational capability with the implementation of an integrated management system certified against four key international management standards: ISO9001:2008 (Quality), ISO14001:2004 (Environmental Management), ISO27001:2013 (Information Security) and ISO50001:2011 (Energy Management).
The integrated management system covers the entire VIRTUS portfolio including its headquarters in Central London, and its LONDON1 and LONDON2 data centres in Enfield and Hayes respectively. By achieving these accreditations, VIRTUS is once again able to demonstrate its commitment to quality, security, operating and energy efficiency, risk and waste reduction, and continual performance improvement in all of its services.
David Watkins, Operational Director, VIRTUS Data Centres said: “It’s a constant commitment of VIRTUS’ to ensure that our facilities and services are internationally recognised to the highest standards, ensuring that both our employees and customers are in the very best settings. By achieving BREEAM and ISO accreditations, VIRTUS has demonstrated that intelligently designed and built data centres, which use innovative technologies, can play an important role when it comes to taking a greener approach to business.”