Google's U.S. Data Centers Earn Environmental Certification

Google has received ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 environmental and workplace safety certifications for all of its U.S. data centers, the company announced Thursday.

Joe Kava, Google's senior director of data center construction and operations, said in a blog post that Google is the first major Internet company to earn these designations. Google has six data centers in the states, located in Oregon, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

ISO 14001 is a standard that aids companies in improving their environmental performance while remaining in compliance with laws. It helps firms set and meet targets for bettering their environmental performance. OHSAS 18001 is a standard for the management of occupational health and safety. This standard provides that companies identify and manage potential risks to health and safety, lower the potential for accidents to happen, comply with legislation, as well as better their overall performance.

"In a nutshell, both standards are built around a very simple concept: Say what you're going to do, then do what you say—and then keep improving," Kava explained. "The standards say what key elements are required, but not how to do it—that part's up to us. So we set some challenging goals for ourselves, and we asked our auditors to confirm that we've followed through on them."

Kava said, for example, that Google has reduced the amount of run time and maintenance necessary for its backup generators, which it must have in case of a power outage. He also said that the company has reduced oil consumption for the generators by 67 percent.

Google will seek these certifications for its European data centers, Kava said.

The search giant in December . This new facility won't be up and running until 2013. Google also plans to open data centers in Singapore and Taiwan in the next few years.