The LEED certification program is a widely recognized system of encouraging sustainable building practices, and Gold is the secondhighest certification level, falling only below Platinum.

Its not at all easy to get.A post on eBays Green Team Talks blog explained, Topaz becomes one of only a small handful of data centers on U.S. soil to achieve LEED Gold a pretty major accomplishment considering the availability and security requirements needed to run eBay AND PayPals servers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.Then the post described some of Topazs green features, which include the collection of rainwater to offset city water use, the ability to use low outside air temperatures to reduce electrical costs for cooling our servers, the use of low emitting materials throughout construction, the use of over 20 recycled and regional building materials in the facility construction, and the use of a chemical free water treatment system.The Topaz data center is located outside Salt Lake City, Utah, by the way, and opened earlier this year.