Iron Mountain Advances High-Performance Data Centers with BREEAM

Iron Mountain achieves a BREEAM Excellent raiting for its VA-7 facility, underscoring its global leadership in sustainable, high performance data center development.

Iron Mountain Data Centers is a global leader in innovative storage, data center infrastructure, asset lifecycle management, and information management services. The company is trusted by more than 240,000 customers in 60 countries, including approximately 95% of the Fortune 1000, and operates over 25 data centers across three continents.

A pioneer in the global data center market, Iron Mountain understands the critical importance of sustainability in an increasingly digital future, committing to clean energy and sustainable operations. In line with this commitment, the company has matched its annual electricity purchases with clean energy since 2017, set ambitious decarbonization goals in 2021, and committed to building each new colocation data center to achieve BREEAM certification.

VA-7 is a two-story, 290,303-square-foot hyperscale data center located on a 142-acre data center campus in Manassas, Virginia. Boasting a 36-megawatt IT load, the facility provides shell and core supporting functions alongside fully fitted data halls. It is also one of nine planned data centers that, taken together, will provide approximately 2.1 million square feet of colocation space for enterprises, federal agencies, hyperscale cloud providers and other customers.

The VA-7 facility and broader Manassas campus are located within the world’s largest data center ecosystem, offering value-driving access to a diverse coalition of cloud, network and other service providers.

BREEAM certification was established as a goal for VA-7 from the outset of the project, aligning with Iron Mountain’s broader commitment to pursue BREEAM certification globally across all developments. Initial project planning began in 2022, with concept design continuing through May 2023 and technical design from June through October 2023. Construction was completed in August 2025, with the facility achieving final BREEAM certification in April 2026.

Iron Mountain engaged Longevity Partners as the Assessor to support the project throughout the assessment and certification process. The organization previously utilized BREEAM in 2022 for AZP2 in Phoenix, Arizona, the first BREEAM-certified data center in North America. VA-7 continues that leadership and reflects Iron Mountain’s continued effort to set a standard that advances industry and consumer expectations for data center performance, efficiency, transparency and sustainability.

As demand for digital infrastructure accelerates, data centers are facing increasing scrutiny around energy, resources and long-term performance. For Iron Mountain, VA-7 presented an opportunity to build on lessons from its previous BREEAM-certified project while bringing a U.S.-based design and construction team together around a globally recognized sustainability framework.

One of the challenges was navigating the differences between U.S. and UK/EU approaches to sustainability, including terminology, standards and expectations around materials and responsible sourcing. While BREEAM provides a common framework designed to support consistency across markets, translating that framework into the day-to-day language of a U.S.-based design team and general contractor required additional coordination and education. Familiarity with BREEAM concepts and terminology varied across the project team, making early engagement particularly important to ensure everyone understood the requirements and how they applied to the project.

The experience highlighted the value of establishing a shared sustainability language early in the process. As global investors and owners increasingly look for consistent ways to evaluate and communicate building performance across markets, frameworks like BREEAM can help create that common foundation while giving local project teams a clear path to implementation.

The BREEAM framework played a key role in [JM4.1]Iron Mountain’s approach to VA-7, providing a clear, actionable roadmap for aligning the company’s global design standards with established building science and performance criteria.

Establishing the desired certification outcome from the outset also gave the project team a clearer view of the documentation and evidence needed to demonstrate performance. This allowed BREEAM criteria to become part of the project’s decision-making process, rather than simply a certification target, helping the team evaluate design choices and maintain focus on energy, resilience, materials and carbon efficiency throughout design and construction.

Health and Wellbeing:

VA-7 achieved full credit for daylighting and view-out in occupied office and support spaces, with 100% of the compliant area meeting daylighting requirements and 90% meeting view-out requirements. Thermal comfort was maintained within the ASHRAE 55 comfort range for 100% of occupied hours, including when modeled against a 2050 climate-change-adjusted weather file.

Energy:

Energy was the project’s strongest-scoring category, with the site achieving 22 of 24 available credits. Strategies included high-COP[MB5.1][MB5.2][MB5.3] chillers, variable-speed Computer Room Air Conditioner and Computer Room Air Handler fan controls, Computational Fluid Dynamics-verified equipment placement and comprehensive building management system energy monitoring. [MB6.1][BW6.2]Equipment was also sized to approximately 18 months of anticipated growth, helping minimize the energy inefficiencies associated with oversizing.

Transport:

VA-7 earned credits, including an exemplary credit, for alternative modes of transportation supported by EV charging infrastructure, bicycle racks, lockers and showers.

Water:

Low-flow fixtures reduced modeled domestic water consumption by approximately 56% compared with code-baseline fixtures. Closed-loop, non-evaporative cooling eliminates cooling makeup water, while whole-building and dedicated water sub-metering, automated leak detection and irrigation-free landscaping further reduce water demand.

Waste:

Construction waste was tracked through independently certified hauling records, with 88.5% of the approximately 1,440 tons diverted from landfill through recycling and reuse. Diversion rates reached more than 91% in some months, contributing to full credit under this criteria.

Materials:

A whole-building life cycle assessment measured embodied carbon from VA-7’s structure and envelope at 339 kgCO₂e/m². [DS7.1]Whole-life embodied carbon, including mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, replacements and external works, totaled 930 kgCO₂e/m², with anticipated end-of-life material recovery reducing total impacts by approximately 17%. VA-7 achieved all six available category credits plus the exemplary level. Additionally, consistent lifecycle analysis across Iron Mountain’s portfolio enables comparison between projects and supports more informed materials selection.

Additionally, consistent lifecycle analysis across Iron Mountain’s portfolio enables comparison between projects and supports more informed materials selection.

Resilience:

The project incorporated measures addressing extreme temperatures, high winds, storms and moisture migration, including chiller redundancy, heat-traced piping, water-resistant precast wall panels and a roof system independently certified for wind-uplift resistance. Functional adaptability was also built into the site’s design through modular construction, pre-provisioned equipment openings and structural provisions for future expansion.

Land Use and Ecology:

An independent ecological survey informed a series of site measures, including fully native and invasive-free landscaping, native trees and shrubs, milkweed to support avian and monarch butterfly habitats and 11 bird boxes installed across the campus. Approximately 5.3 acres of existing woodland were also preserved as tree-save areas.

Pollution:

All cooling systems use zero-ozone-depleting-potential refrigerants. The project also achieved an exemplary credit for local air quality and incorporated a multi-stage sustainable drainage system and Level 2 wet pond that manage surface water runoff with no increase in runoff rate through a 100-year storm event. The facility is also located in an area with a low probability of flooding, with the finished floor approximately 55 feet above the 100-year floodplain.

VA-7 successfully achieved its target BREEAM Excellent rating, with a final score of 78.1%, demonstrating strong performance across the categories most relevant to the facility and providing third-party validation of Iron Mountain’s approach to sustainable data center development. Energy, the highest-weighted BREEAM category for data centers, was the project’s strongest-performing category at 91.67%.

Beyond the individual asset, the certification process provides Iron Mountain with a consistent framework for integrating sustainability into data center design and construction. By identifying performance criteria and evidence requirements early, BREEAM helps inform design decisions and supports a more standardized approach that can be applied across Iron Mountain’s growing portfolio of certified facilities.

The experience also provides a foundation for future projects. Building on the proven basis of design established at AZP2 and carried forward to VA-7 and the wider Manassas campus, Iron Mountain can leverage lessons learned and design strategies across future developments, continuing to strengthen its approach to high-performance data center development.

BREEAM rating(s): VA-7: Post Construction (final), Rating: Excellent, 78.1%

BREEAM program

• BREEAM International 2016 New Construction: Data Centres
• Assessor Longevity Partners
• Consultant Longevity Partners
• Architect Corgan
• Engineer Vanderweil
• Construction Clune