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Data centres – where all the serious number crunching for banks takes place – are huge consumers of energy. Recognizing this, many banks have taken steps to outsource data processing to energy-efficient third parties. Citi, which aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 10% by 2011, has kicked off a programme whereby new data centres, office buildings and operations centres will be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (Leed) certification standards. Plans for the first Leed-compliant data centre were unveiled last year in Germany. It will be Citi’s largest data centre outside the US, covering the entire EMEA region, and is planned to achieve gold Leed status.
"The energy consumption of a data centre is very high," says Dirk Schubert, head of Citi realty services. "This in turn means that the potential for energy savings is enormous. Our design will enable savings in energy consumption of up to 25% or over 16,000 MW hours annually."