Greening the Web
As a graphic and web designer who cares about the environment, I am constantly trying to find ways to help my clients use fewer natural resources and become more sustainable.
One way I do this is to encourage clients to use the web as a marketing tool instead of creating printed marketing materials. Paper products constitute the largest portion of our waste stream (about 35%), not to mention the toxic pollutants used in printing inks. I certainly don't want any trees cut down for my design projects, so using web marketing instead can certainly reduce resource usage and pollution. But I often wonder if the web is really more sustainable…
Web sites certainly don't require paper, but the site files have to be stored somewhere. This is where web hosts come in: they store web site files on their servers so they can be accessed all over the world via the internet. Servers reside in data centers, which are secure facilities that store large servers and other equipment. Data centers are often climate-controlled and hooked up to backup power sources in order to protect the sensitive equipment and data they contain. As you can imagine, this adds up to a lot of energy usage, and most energy in the grid does not come from renewable sources.
Thankfully, there are quite a few web hosting companies that use renewable energy sources to power their data centers or offset their energy usage by investing in renewable sources of energy. These companies are helping to "green the web" by offering sustainable hosting solutions. Here are just a few companies that I found:
- I host my personal sites with Sustainable Websites, who purchase 100% of their power usage equivalent for servers and office equipment in wind-powered Renewable Energy Certificates.
- Acorn Host also purchases Green Certificates to offset 100% of their server and office equipment energy usage. They offer a discount on hosting for non-profit organizations that benefit the community.
- AISO actually produces their own solar power for their office and data center, and they even used green building techniques for their data server building.
- Sustainable Hosting purchases 11,552 kilowatt hours worth of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates yearly to offset the energy used by their web servers and office.
- ecoSky relies on renewable energy credits for their server's power, and they generate solar energy on-site to power their administrative office.
- Elfon purchases wind power through Utah's Blue Sky program to offset their server and office energy usage (as well as the home energy usage of their founders), and offers discounts for customers who also buy renewable energy.
- ThinkHost offsets 100% of their server and office energy usage with solar and wind power credits. They also offer discounts or free hosting to non-profit and activist organizations.
These are just a few of the many companies offering sustainable web hosting. Many of them are committed to reducing their environmental impact in other ways as well, such as allowing staff to tele-commute, implementing office recycling programs, or using energy-efficient electronics in their offices. I encourage you to do your own research on sustainable web hosting companies as well.
Now I can offer my clients even more sustainable design solutions, and invest in alternative energy at the same time! Green life is good.
More Links: TreeHugger's list of green web hosts, Green Server's list of green web hosts
Tags: Computers and Internet, Graphic Design, Green Tech, Home and Garden, offsets, Renewable Power, solar+power, web+design, web+hosting, wind+power
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February 10th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I recommend AISO (http://www.aiso.net) as they are the only one's doing more then just making sure the electricity is green, take a look at their web site to find out how they are doing more. Their tech support is fantastic and they are the only ones that also produce their green power on-site. I host a few of my sites with them for years and I’ll never switch to anyone else. Plus they were featured in Inc. Magazines’ Top 50 Green Companies. None of the others were because AISO is recognized as doing more then having green power, like having solar tubes that bring in natural light, a propane generator instead of diesel, having high-tech environmentally friendly air-conditioning systems and more.
February 11th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Thanks for the nice summary of the available options, I wrote you up on <a href="http://ecoiron.blogspot.com">ecoIron</a> as well.
I think there's a lot more criteria that need to be added into the equation here to make a selection. As this market heats up we are going to see a lot of marketing based around the small differences in business models; AISO, for example, is now marketing that they make their own power. Myself, I don't feel that's a notable differentiator over RECs. I would add in items such as price, operating system of your servers (Windows clearly requires more resources), percent of virtualized servers, your hardware cycle, and how you disposed of your eWaste. These are also very important factors in providing a sustainable computing solution.
Mark
February 13th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
First, this was a great resource I had been looking for as far as sustainable web hosts.
Although, I also wonder about sustainable usage of the Internet. On my blog I talked about an article I read that compared the energy use of Second Life avatars compared to real humans.
http://www.hcidesigns.com/cmbeck/?p=19
I think another issue isn't just what happens on the server end but how activity on the Internet can be controlled or organized in way that isn't wasteful. For example, wikipedia.org has inherent sustainability because it keeps users from having to generate information on scattered websites, perform countless fruitless searches online and keeps out clutter. Everything I write or search for online requires power. Every byte is represented naturally on some level so we need to treat the Internet activity accordingly.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:14 am
Hi Megan. Thanks for mentioning ThinkHost, Inc in your list of green web hosts! I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to make a special offer to your readers - free setup and 6 months free hosting on our earth friendly package, The Plan:
http://www.thinkhost.com/options/
Coupon code: THD999999AFM6A
The coupon code is entered on our order form :).
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Something else to note about energy credits, as you stated mark, there is no real difference, i beg to differ. The actual electrons consumed to power the servers at the hosting companies that are using REC’s are not necessarily the electrons generated from the energy credits. Each energy credit generated feeds power into the utility grid for everyone to use. So their servers may consume electrons that are generated by a coal-fired facility, but another consumer within the power grid will consume the electrons generated from the energy credits. The net impact is a reduction in GHG emissions using energy credits, which dont get me wrong is good, but with AISO.Net(solar) you know the electons generated from its solar panels are going directly to the servers.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:37 am
I am inclined to evaluate like Tim and want see quite a big movement of data centres towards electrification by dencentralized and renewable energy ressources. This off grid operational option will ensure even the stability of replenishment in cases of landwide blackouts.
ecologee.net - Overview of Known Eco-ISPs tracks all - to our knowledge - green web hosting companies.
ecologee.net spreads the idea of a truly Green Internet of a real grid of data centres connected by Green carriers which have to invest in renewables on their sites too. As carriers are our next target some have to get on with structures of last-mile-providers to turn even (mobile)phones into sustainable energy consuming devices.
We have to develop a different routing protocol, which keeps ecobilances in account. Every switch, router driven by solar, wind, biomass, etc. has to signalize that it is driven environmentally friendly. Theoretically this could be implemented into the header of IPv6 and every machine has to do the maths for each packet.
We know, that an ISP could do even more for a green www, e.g. personal transport and environmental friendly architecture, but our focus for know remains on green energy.
I a few years I want to be able to choose the grade and quality of green energy used for my Internet usage, which leads to a formation of an international body one day. Maybe the w3 itself?
July 17th, 2008 at 2:44 am
I like your post. However, I hate Thinkhost. They have the worst, actually non existent, customer service. They lied to me. They wasted so much of my time…I could have been buying solar panels or recycling instead of all the time I put into emails that went no where…I reported them to the BBB. that was the only thing that somewhat got there attention to offer me a refund. The green movement needs business savvy. This groups does not! It taints your image by putting them on this list. Did you research them thoroughly? Did you use them or try them out? Or do you just want to get noticed in the green world?
July 26th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I notice this post is almost a year and a half old, so I thought I would let you know that there are quite a few more out there that I have found recently. I listed all of the ones we looked at in detail on my blog. I have since also found several others, but it can be quite overwhelming to scrutinize all of them.
I agree with what some of the others have said. I would prefer a company that actually generates green energy to one that simply offsets their use. It does take us a step in the right direction. After all, I know all companies can’t now (or some not in the foreseeable future due to location) install solar panels or wind turbines. These companies should still be commended for taking some steps. At any rate, these carbon offset purchases can hopefully encourage an increased availability (and resulting lower cost) to green energy in the future when we can all power our homes and offices with it.