When everyday users shop for cloud storage, they tend to compare plans and prices based on gigabytes or terabytes. This is not so when it comes to businesses looking for a secure, highly available data center. For the last decade, data centers have stopped measuring usage in terms of floor space or terabytes, and have introduced price plans based on megawatts. Whether you run a major corporation or a mid-sized business, if you are looking for a secure and reliable data center, you are paying for one thing: power.

According to Data Center Knowledge, “US data centers consumed about 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2014… [this is] equivalent to the amount consumed by about 6.4 million average American homes that year.” However, as the article also points out, while the demand for data center storage has skyrocketed over the past five years, the amount of power consumption by US data centers only increased slightly due to the providers’ commitment to sustainable energy usage.

As data center providers in the US, Australia, and other countries have shown, green energy practices are possible in data center facilities. In fact, since businesses are paying for power more so than storage space, by designing more efficient and sustainable facilities, data center providers are helping to lower their costs while also reducing their carbon footprint.

Polymer Connected is strongly committed to ensuring a sustainable lifecycle for our data centers, focusing on longevity versus short-term investment costs. Every one of our data centers is built with high-quality materials that last, in a location that allows us access to efficient energy, and with consideration for environmental impact. We also cut down on waste by carefully considering every component that goes into building our centers, factoring in how long it lasts, how it’s disposed of and what impact that has on the environment, and whether a more innovative approach would allow us to go without it.

It’s not just about the initial design and build, however. Our facilities operate efficiently on an ongoing basis by collecting the waste heat generated by servers and hardware and turning it into cooling. Since cooling is one of the most power-consuming aspects of data storage, this efficient and innovative design allows us to use far less energy while still maintaining the health of our data center servers.

As business leaders and as good citizens, we all have a duty to protect the world we live in, however possible. This is a key part of the Polymer Connected business model. By using a sustainable data center like Polymer Connected, you not only lower your costs in terms of energy usage, but you also make a positive impact on the environment.