One of the things I love most about being a Social Media Virtual Administrator is the fact that I have some control on my carbon footprint. You see, I don’t commute to work every day, my clients don’t need to have additional workspace, equipment and spend extra on utilities for me to get the job done. I also use recyclable materials in my office and home wherever possible. This is all great. But I do virtually (pardon the pun) all my work online and what was starting to weigh on me, was the knowledge of just what an impact computing has on the environment and so I began to consider green hosting for myself and my clients.
While I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about the subject, one thing I do understand and that is that the IT sector has a big climate impact and all those datacentres out there are using a huge amount of electricity not only to power but also to cool their servers. So, I embarked on a journey to find a host provider that had not only talked a good story about being green but one who put their money where their mouth was and appears to have implemented an environmentally sound program for their business.
It might have been easy enough to find someone whose servers operated solely on wind. That would have been ideal if that was the only criteria I had to consider. The challenge for me was to find someone who not only had a green solution, but one who is successful with a good track record, provides great technical support, supports WordPress (the platform that most of my clients use for their website or their blogging vehicle) and who is reasonably priced. Working with small local business owners, cost is always a factor.
About a month ago, I moved most of my clients over to Hostgator. I have been most impressed not only with the work they have done on going green, but also with the organization as a whole. Their ‘up time’ is really good, they have a sound grasp of WordPress, their pricing is reasonable and their technical support people are great. The only down side? I wish they were Canadian!
You should know that I am not an affiliate, nor am I getting any compensation for this testimonial. This is strictly me being really happy to have found a hosting company that has to date met all my needs and this includes a green focus. This is good news for me and for my clients and I now feel that I am being responsible to the environment.
How about you? Do you worry about your carbon footprint? I know there must be other good green suppliers out there and I’d love your input! Let’s get people thinking in this direction.
Here on my blog you’ll get commentluv. This is a plug-in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you leave feedback.
Until next time,
Joanne
While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours anywhere.
[...] Have a browse: Have You Considered Green Hosting?. [...]
Hi Gillian, thanks for stopping in and commenting on the post!
Yes I looked at Hostpapa as well, however they are more expensive (considerably) than the US companies unless you lock in for 3 years which is not something I recommend for my clients. I deal mainly with small local business owners (mostly solo-preneurs)… Having said that, Hostpapa does consistently come up as a good host provider here and I think they would be a good choice.
Did you look into HostPapa? They are a Canadian company and purchase green energy certificates to offset all the power they use. Here’s a link to their site: http://www.hostpapa.ca/all-about-green.
Gillian recently posted..Friday Review: November 4, 2011
Hello Met, thank you for visiting my site and for your comments on the post. While cost is certainly a factor in choosing a host provider, if you end up dealing with someone who has significant down time, bad service/customer support or is environmentally irresponsible, these factors have far reaching consequences in the big picture. I for one would rather pay a few dollars more to get a first class provider. Good for you for revisiting the environmentally conscious aspect!
Kind regards, Joanne
I enjoyed reading your post. I actually just moved my business away from hostgator and aweber for a whole different reason – savings. I had never given any thought to how green a company was or wasn’t, but this article has made me aware of the option. I may be coming back to hostgator after reading your article
). I would like to share a great resource with everyone who could benefit from GVO hosting. Global Virtual Opportunities is very inexpensive and you get to host 4 domains, a blogger builder, video producer, cpanel, eresponder, conference room and gvo academy all for under $10/mo. I have a new objective now, which is to find out what they’re doing about going more green.
Take Care, Met Rivers http://gvoreview.net/htp
Met Rivers recently posted..GVO
Hi Rodney, thanks so much for stopping by and reading the post. With the internet world growing exponentially, we need to factor this into the impact we are having on the environment and do our part with respect to our carbon footprint, especially as VAs.
Kind Regards, Joanne
Very well written article.. it gives me an overview for green hosting and i can relate
to you as VA..nice post.
Rodney recently posted..Hello world!
Hi Bob, you are so very welcome! I was so pleased to be able to offer this to my clients – particularly you. I know how important this is to you.
I will continue to keep my eyes and ears open for any opportunities to improve our carbon footprint.
Kindest regards, Joanne
Great blog, Joanne! As an author and speaker on sustainability topics, it’s important to my credibility that I walk the talk on being “green.” My home is powered by Bullfrog Power for all my electricity and gas. Thanks for helping me move my web site to Hostgator last month. Having my site hosted by a high quality, green host is a new point of pride for me. Good for you for alerting others to this option.
Bob Willard recently posted..Aligning ESG Benefits with the Value Chain