Real Energy Savings in the Virtual World
It wasn’t so long ago that the biggest concern for webmasters was simply keeping their sites online and running properly. But with the double-whammy of rapidly-accelerating web hosting demands and climate change, a growing number of site operators are looking for ways to not only stay online but to stay online sustainably.
If you’ve never given much thought to the amount of energy it takes to power the Internet and all its sites and services, consider this: so many new Web servers went into operation between 2000 and 2005 that global data center energy consumption doubled during that time period. (While the growing popularity of lower-end servers increased per-unit energy consumption, most of the increased power demand came from a sheer growth in numbers of servers
— a study put the two growth rates at 5 to 8 percent and 90 percent, respectively.)
Fortunately, eco-minded webmasters are finding more hosting companies that are trying to do something to reduce their energy appetites, or at least offset the emissions their operations produce. VirtualHosting.com, an online resource for comparison-shopping virtual (shared-server) Web hosting providers, recently published a guide to hosts working to shrink their environmental footprints. "Green Hosting: 11 Carbon-Neutral Hosting Alternatives" provides a good overview to some green Web hosts in the U.S., U.K and Australia.
While some of the hosting companies (Rackspace or WebHostingBuzz, for example) plant trees or take other conservation measures to reduce their overall environmental impact, others are partially (Sustainable Hosting) or fully (Iron Mountain) powered by renewable sources. It’s interesting to see the different approaches taken by different companies, and encouraging to see that a growing number are at least trying to do something.
Another good starting point for those shopping for Earth-friendly Web services is Co-op America’s National Green Pages. A click on the Internet > Consulting/Services option takes you to information about 31 different green Internet service providers. You’ll find some of the same names described in the VirtualHosting.com article, but many others as well, including ThinkHost, which is fully powered by a mix of solar and wind energy.
It’s reassuring to know that, while the Internet and all its virtual bells and whistles require real-world energy, some Web companies are trying to lighten the load.
Tags: Computers and Internet, data centers, hosting, Internet service providers, ISPs, renewable energy, Web hosts
- Uncategorized
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I wish all companies were like that because tons of energy must be wasted. It nice to see people are doing something about it.
Good article.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:57 pm
boooooooo !!! hi digg
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Boooo hi digg
October 4th, 2007 at 3:45 am
I was excited to find this article and many of the links in here are very useful EXCEPT Iron Mountain - the link here is to the document management company, which doesn’t appear to do either web hosting or say anything on it’s site about the environment at all, doesn’t look like a concern to them or that they do anything sustainable.
October 5th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Hi there,
Thanks for this post on green web hosting and for mentioning ThinkHost! It’s always great to see earth friendly hosting getting coverage - people certainly respond favorably to sites that are hosted via renewable energy judging by the feedback we’re getting from our clients.
By the way, we’d like to offer GreenOptions readers free setup and 3 free months hosting with us - no strings attached :). Here’s the coupon code.
THD99999TREEM3A
http://www.thinkhost.com
The coupon code is entered on our order form, you’ll see a field for it.
We’ve also recently started a tree planting program whereby we arrange for a tree to be planted on behalf of each new client :).
Michael Bloch
Business Development Manager
ThinkHost, Inc
October 9th, 2007 at 4:38 am
What about having your web site powered by 100% solar….AISO.Net (http://www.aiso.net) is 100% solar powered, both their servers and data center are powered by onsite solar panels. They also have a partnership with Co-Op America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USBGC). Their data center and office is green too by using environmentally friendly, low energy water based air conditioners, solar tubes to bring in natural light during the day, a propane powered generator instead of diesel (which most other hosting companies have), VMWare virtualization to reduce their server electricity usage, 6 watt energy saving desktop computers for their employees, and soon to be LEED certified as a green data center, the only public one in North America. They have been featured in Inc. Magazines’ Top 50 Green Companies along with the Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, ComputerWorld and Entrepreneur Magazine just to name a few. AISO is also the first and currently the only public data center that is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council. To find out more ways they are helping the environment check out their web site.
October 27th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Thinkhost would be great except that it frequently is completely inaccessible. Email frequently bounces, and sometimes the site servers themselves are down. I have had two sites hosted there for a couple years in order to use their newsletter capability (their site servers are too slow for a business), and as of now, they have been inaccessible for more than 24 hours. No email is functioning. No reply from support, nothing. This is not the first time, either.
I want to support green businesses, but I will be moving my sites off thinkhost as soon as I am once again able to access them, which at this rate, might be never.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Don’t forget about us at A2 Hosting! We teamed up with Carbon Fund to offset our server emissions. You can read the press release here: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/more/carbonfree_partner/549.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
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