Chris

After going gangbusters in posting about my experiences with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, you’ll have likely noticed that I took some time off over the weekend (or maybe you didn’t, but I swear I did). The reason for the downtime is that I decided to bite the bullet and switch hosting providers.

I’d like to first point out that the change wasn’t necessitated from any malcontent with my previous hosting provider, asmallorange, but instead a desire to ensure I’m doing more to contribute towards a sustainable lifestyle as a whole. After doing a little research online, I discovered that there were a number of “greener” options available and opted to go with GreenGeeks who purchase wind energy credits to compensate for the equivalent amount of power (and then some) used to support their business.

Wind Power Rocks! – courtesy of emmerogers

There were a number of different companies that offered “green” hosting, GreenGeeks offers more than just good karma. In the few days I’ve been on board, I’ve received nothing but great work from their support team who not only transferred my entire account from one provider to another, but provided support for my WordPress install (definitely service beyond the call). Price wise, I am paying more than I was previously, but with the superb service and the environmental accountability, I’m definitely happy with my decision to switch.

Speaking of environmental accountability, GreenGeeks does more than just purchase wind credits:

In addition to purchasing wind energy credits GreenGeeks works on all of our servers and reconfigures them so that they run more efficiently using less energy and running cooler. What this means is less energy consumption on the server as well as less energy needed to cool the server. (Co-location data centers are constantly cooled [24x7x365] by enormous cooling fans which use a tremendous amount of energy). These attentions to detail on the servers allow us to be more energy efficient in our data centers, but we don’t stop there.

Use only what’s needed – GreenGeeks is also hyper conscious about our carbon footprint in our offices. We employ rigorous recycling in our offices and we make sure that only legal and essential documents are printed to conserve paper. Any non essential documents which are printed by mistake are returned to the recycle paper area of the office for reuse in any other printing that we need to do. In addition we employ auto lighting control systems to make sure that the lights are not on when no one is in their offices and we make sure we power down all office equipment when not in use.

Lunch and dinner at the office – Our employees take turns bringing in home cooked meals to the office to reduce the amount of times we go out to eat which helps keep bodies in their seats for your support as well as reduce the amount of paper, plastic and Styrofoam which typically come with take out orders.

Telecommuting – GreenGeeks searches for top notch personnel and sometimes we find talented and skilled service personnel who are not located near our offices. Rather than try to relocate these talented employees we allow them to telecommute from home or a shared office near them. This allows some of our employees to not have to commute to work saving money and carbon emissions on gas consumption for their cars.

So if you think you’re in the market for a new hosting provider, or simply want to do your part to green up your website, I’d highly recommending looking for a provider such as GreenGeeks or something similar.

Disclosure – Embedded in this post are affiliate marketing links – cmp.ly/5