Tell me about it. Education about green-tech efforts can earn LEED points.

If your team is working on technology updates or data center retrofits that are being applied toward a certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, remember that you can earn points for educating and showing the general public (and your employees) about what you did and why.

One example of how to do this is offered by Georgia Data Center, which recently finished a new 80,000-square-foot facility in Atlanta in conjunction with building automation systems integrator WayPoint Systems. The facility managers are seeking a gold LEED certification for the facility. Some of its potential earned credit will be related to a visual dashboard designed by QA Graphics, which offers up information about each of the green features in the facility and explains the impact on energy efficiency.

The dashboard actually hooks into the data center's building automation systems to provide real-time insight into how the cooling systems are working, the carbon emissions being contributed to the environment, and overall power consumption. It also illustrates how other technologies throughout the facility work. For example, the water management system used for outdoor landscaping is explained and demonstrated visually.

The dashboard, which works in conjunction with a touchscreen, is designed to help the facility earn points under the "Innovation in Design - Green Education" credit. QA Graphics is selling the application to data centers, universities, commercial buildings and restaurants, among other organizations.

So, keep in mind when you're working on an energy efficiency architecture for some aspect of your data center or facility that you could earn some points for telling people about how you did it.