You may already be occupying the greenest data center you’ll ever build, if IBM’s example is anything to go by.

The IT behemoth’s newly-refreshed Research Triangle Park facility in North Carolina makes use of cutting-edge efficiency features like sensors, modular IT building blocks and free-cooling to reduce energy consumption by 15 percent and cutting CO2 emissions by nearly half. However, the key to LEED Gold was a good old fashioned reuse and recycling.

Instead of building a new facility from scratch, IBM was able to reuse 95 percent of the existing structure’s shell while recycling a full 90 percent of the original building’s materials. All told, these steps should save IBM a million dollars in the first year.

Image credit: IBM