Global Switch has announced that its Amsterdam data center has achieved ISO 50001:2011 certification for its energy management system.

The owner, developer and operator of large-scale, carrier and cloud neutral data centers currently operates in the Tier 1 markets of Europe and Asia Pacific to Tier three or higher, with around 320,000 square metres of floor space all up.

Global Switch says its latest achievement is in line with the company's continued drive for sustainability and energy efficiency in the design, building and operation of its data centers around the world.

To be able to achieve the ISO 50001:2011 standard organisations must have a measurable amd data driven energy efficiency policy in place, which essentially acts as a catalyst for continual improvement of its energy usage.

Including Madrid, Global Switch now has two data centers with the certification and asserts the remaining Global Switch data centers are well advanced in achieving certification.

Global Switch's continual drive for energy efficiency is certainly clear with its considerable improvements in Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) metric over time. The company asserts it has been chasing efficiencies since the beginning, with stage one of the planned expansion to data center having a design PUE 1.35, while subsequent stages will have a target PUE of 1.2.

"We are very pleased with achieving this latest certification for our data center," says Global Switch Amsterdam managing director Johan Groeneweg.

"For our customers, having a thorough energy management system in place is paramount. The amount of energy that our customers use, is large enough for us to make a real contribution by continuously increasing our efficiency in powering their IT equipment."

The company is now planning the second phase of its expansion to its Amsterdam data center, with the first phase being pre-let to an international telecommunications service provider.

The second phase of the expansion, Global Switch asserts, will work to offer highly efficienct and resilient data center solutions for a range of customers that will benefit from having direct access to the extensive ecosystems, connectivity and low latency of Global Switch Amsterdam.

The ISO 50001:2011 certification has been awarded by BSI Group and is valid until 2021. In addition to ISO 50001, Global Switch Amsterdam has certifications for: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001, ISAE 3402 Type 2, PCI DSS, OHSAS 18001 and AMS-IX.