What are your thoughts on Green Web Hosting companies, because I myself have setup a small business providing green web hosting for an affordable price, but just wanted to know what ways of advertising I should use, and whether you are bothered about whether it helps the planet or not.

I don't necessarily look specifically for 'green' web hosting. However, if my provider is 'green' then I guess it can be considered a nice plus. :)

Are they truly "green" though? Most companies say they are green but what they are really doing is offsetting their energy use by buying wind certificates or credits. They aren't truly wind powered. Does that make them green?

Are they truly "green" though? Most companies say they are green but what they are really doing is offsetting their energy use by buying wind certificates or credits. They aren't truly wind powered. Does that make them green?

It still contributes to the cause in my opinion.

It still contributes to the cause in my opinion.

I agree - Every little bit counts!

I could relate with igxhost, I never make it as a requirement for a host to be green or even just I thought of trying to look for one, but if one happens to be then it's a plus and would make me feel better choosing them over the others.

good questions. Host gator says they offer Green Hosting, they show wind turbines. So are you saying that they may only have the certificate and not really wind turbines?

I do everything I can to promote eco green anything. I have to believe that every little bit helps.

good questions. Host gator says they offer Green Hosting, they show wind turbines. So are you saying that they may only have the certificate and not really wind turbines?

wondering the same.

It seems the world is going green nowadays. I think things that are 'green' in everyday products is big, but i do not think it has quite catched on with web hosting and i don't think it will. I look for many things in hosting providers and weather they are 'green' or not is on the bottom of my list.

the real mean going green?

I do everything I can to promote eco green anything. I have to believe that every little bit helps.

right every bit count :)

I do everything I can to promote eco green anything. I have to believe that every little bit helps.

yeah that's actually true. im with you.

In the UK I wonder if it would be possible to run your data with http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ as your power supplier. That would in theory make you one of the greenest hosts - they spend as much of your bill as possible on building wind farms and all that kind of thing :) Something to think about for anyone in the UK perhaps?

I'm with the others. Green services aren't a requirement of mine. However if both providers are offering the same level of service and product, and one is providing green services I would consider them over the provider that is not.

Anything that can be done to be more green is a bonus, and is one of the things I would take into consideration. I suppose the very nature of web hosting means that you can never be completely green, but you can be more green.

Just out of interest, in what areas are you green?

good questions. Host gator says they offer Green Hosting, they show wind turbines. So are you saying that they may only have the certificate and not really wind turbines?

Yes, they only buy credits. But think about it, if all hosting companies support such notion, then there will be more utility companies setting up to harness natural resources for electricity. Still a good cause.

I'm with the others. Green services aren't a requirement of mine. However if both providers are offering the same level of service and product, and one is providing green services I would consider them over the provider that is not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ne4mDDdMc&feature=player_embedded#

I do everything I can to promote eco green anything. I have to believe that every little bit helps.

my new hosting company uses the idea of planting new tree's every year to conterbalance the ommission, i guess its a way of being as carbon neutralised as possible without lying and buying a fake certificate like someone previously mentioned

good questions. Host gator says they offer Green Hosting, they show wind turbines. So are you saying that they may only have the certificate and not really wind turbines?
They buy energy credits and IMO they are virtually worthless. It doesn't show that the company is actually doing anything to lessen it's environmental impact, they are just buying a clean conscience.
Yes, they only buy credits. But think about it, if all hosting companies support such notion, then there will be more utility companies setting up to harness natural resources for electricity.
Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that, as most energy companies aren't actually investing much money in new renewable power generation. The energy credits are just counted against the existing renewable generation from long established sources such as hydro, of which there's little new stuff being brought online.

In the UK I wonder if it would be possible to run your data with http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ as your power supplier. That would in theory make you one of the greenest hosts - they spend as much of your bill as possible on building wind farms and all that kind of thing :) Something to think about for anyone in the UK perhaps?
Ecotricity are a world leader and they invest more in new renewable generation than all the other UK energy companies combined, a lot more in fact!

We use Ecotricity for all our UK based activities, but for our hosting servers use the world's first custom built fully solar powered data centre (http://www.aiso.net) that's in California. Then on top of that we plant an increasing number of tree each year, actively work to continually reduce our consumption of resources and follow the R > R > R ethos (Reduce/Reuse/Recycle). Find out more here (http://www.lightbeingcreations.co.uk/about-us/ethics-environment)

So there's a lot more to simply buying energy credits if a company actually wants to be green, rather than just slapping the words "Green" and a few images of windmills or trees on their website and hoping no one looks deeper to see what they do ;)

can you explain more about green hosting?

i am just a beginner in web designing and IT also.plz help.

Hostgator purchases Renewable Energy Certificates (REC's) from 3degreesinc.com. Most companies, just about all of them, buy some form of credits. In my opinion this should be considered green because the credits are used to setup green projects such as tree planting, methane extractors, or green forms of power such as wind turbines. Therefore, the carbon hostgator emits is offset by the trees they funded to be planted.

If you really think about it, People don't care if your a green host or not, They care about there service and files. They make sure you have great support and great servers.

Green Web Hosting is a plus.
Most green hosting companies are powered by wind energy.

They buy energy credits and IMO they are virtually worthless. It doesn't show that the company is actually doing anything to lessen it's environmental impact, they are just buying a clean conscience.

I disagree.

At home, I pay extra on my electric bill for higher priced renewable energy so that my home is technically classified as 100% powered by renewable energy. Does my electric company have the technological ability to ensure that the energy being zapped into *my* house is only green and renewable and not "dirty"? No.

But the premium I pay for my energy means that they purchased green energy and put it into the grid equal to precisely what my house uses, and there's only a finite amount of energy needed in the grid, which means that less dirty energy is in the grid and more renewable energy is in the grid because I signed up to pay a higher electric bill.

I offset, with my premium payment, dirty energy, and I got more green energy into the collective pool by paying a premium, even if the neighbor down the street who chose not to do that gets my green zap.

Carbon offsets work in precisely the same way. Can my servers directly use the green energy from the second electric bill I choose to pay every month? No, because my data center doesn't have the ability to do that.

My particular money went into the Inland industrial rooftop solar power facilities being built in Rialto, California for Edison customers in California - they're building three that would not have been likely built with outside investment from carbon offset buyers like myself, and will more quickly help Edison reach a goal of providing 20% of its electricity from renewable resources.

Hardly a virtually worthless project or purchase.

Do I wish that energy was going directly into my servers? Sure.

Do I think being a small part of the largest solar energy project in the nation with a goal of 250 million megawatts of solar generation capacity is worthless? Hardly.

Paying two electric bills a month is a pretty expensive way to "buy a clean conscience".

what boxes do you have to tick to be able to call yourself a green host?

what boxes do you have to tick to be able to call yourself a green host?

Green Servers :stickout:

Hi,

I would say Green Hosting is not my pre-requisite. However, it would be an added advantage to be using green web hosting at low price. Website uptime and customer support are what matters to me.

Green Web Hosting
funny enough, I thought something different - hosting with 0% uptime guarantee, basically servers are never plug in into power socket as I haven seen any solar powered data centre yet. :D:D:D

I'm not so sure that customers really care about Green Hosting.. the average person doesn't really know that much about global warming to care. I would, however, support the movement for users that want a Green Host. Like others have said, it's a nice touch.

In my opinion, it will be reasonable to deal with environmental friendly hosting providers. I appreciate those green hosts...

which company first started to use green energy for promoting their web service ??

What are your thoughts on Green Web Hosting companies, because I myself have setup a small business providing green web hosting for an affordable price, but just wanted to know what ways of advertising I should use, and whether you are bothered about whether it helps the planet or not.

Green hosting is great for our industry and we here at GreenGeeks hope that customers do start looking for "green" in their search for a responsible, reliable host.

I think that Green Web Hosting companies are pretty cool because they're doing their part to lessen their environmental footprint. Whether one believes in Global Warming or not, there's nothing wrong with resource conservation. I, personally, will only host with an environmentally friendly web hosting service provider. If the company doesn't offer a green web hosting solution, I'm not interested.

I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a "green web hosting certification" program that inspects in detail web hosts that claim to be green and certifies them as such according to certain annually updated standards.

I just gone through green web hosting in couple of sites,what does it really mean?
Is it environment friendly or something more?

I just gone through green web hosting in couple of sites,what does it really mean?
Is it environment friendly or something more?

Green web hosting "should" mean (IMO) that the hosting overall is carbon neutral, meaning that through various company initiatives such as recycling, buying green tags, and so on, the company offsets whatever carbon it generates by neutralizing it in other ways (buying an equal amount of renewable energy, and so on).

There are non-profits that will help companies calculate their carbon "footprint" and then come up with a way for them to offset it that's trackable. We personally have used BEF since 2007, and they just did a presentation with Green Geeks at HostingCon on green hosting this week.

Hello
As for me, I'm positive attitude to green web hosting companies. And I will give priority to this companies.

wondering the same.

If they were 100% wind powered, that would mean that The Planet is 100% wind powered.

Seeing as that's not something The Planet advertises, and it's something completely implausible from the amount of power that they draw vs. the current quantity of wind generation plants in Texas, it's unlikely that HostGator is 130% wind powered as they claim.

Now, if they were Nuclear powered, I would consider them to be a green host. Why? Nuclear is a VERY clean source of power. Especially if using a Pebble Bed Reactor.

People put Nuclear power down claiming it's such a bad technology. In reality, you can create nearly endless quantities of power with very, very little waste by ratio. In addition, it's extremely safe.

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island all had VERY unique circumstances around them. It's not stuff that happens every day.

I'm proud to say my home is powered by a nuclear power plant down in Miami. If you live in Central Florida, you should be proud to say that your home is powered by a reactor in Port Saint Lucie :)

If they were 100% wind powered, that would mean that The Planet is 100% wind powered.

Seeing as that's not something The Planet advertises, and it's something completely implausible from the amount of power that they draw vs. the current quantity of wind generation plants in Texas, it's unlikely that HostGator is 130% wind powered as they claim.

Hostgator double-buys their electricity - once to pay The Planet, and then they buy 130% of whatever they use and it goes into the grid. Technically, they are, as that's how an offset works.

Right now, unless you have an actual solar or wind station private set up, that's how just about *all* renewable energy purchases work, whether you do it by offset or by paying your power company, because grids are communal. AISO is one exception, but they're "off-grid" - their set up is 100% private. The rest of us in major data centers aren't in the same boat as far as even having the option, so we have to accomplish it in other ways.

Example: My house is powered by Pedernales Electric Coop. I can pay a regular amount and get "regular energy", or I can pay a premium rate, and be guaranteed 100% renewable energy (which I do). The way that works is that whatever energy I use, they guarantee by contract that they will buy that same amount over what they normally would have bought and will put it into their grid. Someone 5 or 10 miles away likely got "my" zap, but that renewable energy zap wouldn't have been in the grid if I didn't pay a premium to put it in there.

Green tags for actual energy are finite (one tag is assigned to one specific zap of energy, and that zap is technically yours), and works in the same way - once your tag is purchased and your energy is in the grid, that zap can't be sold again to someone else, so while the "zaps" may not be going directly to HostGator, they've put green watts into the grid that would not have been there before by their purchase, even if someone else is using them.

What that does is elevate the ratio of renewable to non-renewable energy in the grid, and that's why they're green and wind powered (as long as they're certified). As long as you've covered all your energy use, you can say you are solar or wind powered and so on because it's going into the communal grid, meant for you, and you bought it.

To be completly honest "green" is just a gimic which is added on as a selling point.

To be completly honest "green" is just a gimic which is added on as a selling point.

And you say that based on what, in particular? That people are not really purchasing the energy they claim, the Green-e certification is corrupt, the money going into green energy is being redirected to terrorist organizations...?

gimmick - any clever (deceptive) maneuver

So, please, enlighten me - what's deceptive about companies investing money in renewable energy? Which part is deceptive?

Sorry wrong choice of words i was meaning it was deceptive.I was meaning that The company is not doing it because i wants to be green it does it because it will atract clientel therefore it is a selling point.

Sorry wrong choice of words i was meaning it was deceptive.I was meaning that The company is not doing it because i wants to be green it does it because it will atract clientel therefore it is a selling point.

I am so unbelievably tired of that old slam. Honestly.

<rant>

It seems to me to be nothing more than a snarky slam against businesses that have the money to make the investment by people who don't have the money to make the investment, or who don't give a you know what about carbon neutrality or the state of this industry.

You think AISO invested all that money in being off-grid as a "marketing gimmick"? GreenGeeks went through the process of being certified a United States EPA Green Power Partner to just get a marketing angle? You think Hostgator or I or HostPapa or Dreamhost double-pays an electric bill so we can put some nature looking crap on the front of our site in hopes that we'll sell to one or two aging hippies?

Companies do things, and then they use what they do in marketing - whether that's good support, fancier servers, their data center being in a bunker, their drives being faster, their pipes being better situated, their allotments being "unlimited" (just don't check them there inode limits), their location being better situated, their people being smarter. Take your pick, find something, and spin it. That's the name of the game.

That's what marketing is. It's taking what you are and what you do and showing it off in the best possible light hoping someone will buy your stuff.

For some reason, "green" is the only thing consistently pegged as a gimmick despite the fact that no one can point to corruption, deception, embezzlement, exploitation and the claims can be easily verified as factual because all of these things are independently certified - it also seems to be said by people who seem to have absolutely no clue that our industry has a SERIOUS problem with ridiculous levels of energy consumption that has already been called out by the EPA.

Unless you know the principles of the company that decided to go green, you honestly have no clue why they did it, what their motivations were, or what their thought processes were behind doing it.

The simple fact is, though, that the ability to market it is a byproduct of addressing a serious issue that, if not addressed, may get the government(s) involved to stamp all of us into the ground with regulations no one here wants, whether its data center builders or end buyers that have a shared slice on a box. When you Google "data center energy" and you find "Data Center Report to Congress" come up, you have to step back from the spin and marketing and realize these principles of these large companies may see writing on the wall that you don't see.

If this industry as a whole doesn't get off it's collective rear end and get more efficient, governments may begin to step in and force it. Any responsible industry, any responsible company that cares about its industry, will step in and attempt to avoid that kind of forced regulation like the plague.

In 2007, the EPA said based on current growth rates by 2011 data centers nationwide would consume almost twice the amount of electricity as they did in 2006. We're beating that projection by a year, based on a new study commissioned by AMD released this week.

It shows that the amount of electricity to power the world's data center doubled in five years due to the increased demand of services like music and video downloads.

This is NOT just a marketing issue. Data Center energy consumption is growing at an exponential rate, and if you're not aware that there are serious issues with the amount of energy data centers gulp down and that the problem is growing, then you're not paying attention to the issues this industry as a whole is facing. These initiatives are attempting to address things and self-regulate before they get out of control - that's what a responsible industry and what responsible members of an industry do.

Those of us in other people's data centers have no choice but to green tag it - and you know, if I'm doing it, darn straight I'm going to market it - not just to reassure my clients that I give a damn about the environment and I notice that the EPA is staring at my industry like we're a greedy hog at the trough, but to hopefully pressure this industry to get off its collective rear before we double again.

I don't want my green tags to make me different. I want my badge of energy responsibility to be the mark of the norm in my industry, something everyone has, and a sign that I am a responsible member in addressing what is, by all accounts, a serious and growing problem.

</rant off>

Yes, but it is nice point to contribute to the society.

If you do business, you should care to h umanity and our earth. right?
To be completly honest "green" is just a gimic which is added on as a selling point.

green web hosting companys show they are concerned with the environment, which is something people worldwide enjoy to see. If you are green you should activly promote it

the real mean going green?

In Generic, the term green is related to environment and green web hosting mean that its an environmental guided hosting.

Green web hosting can be best described as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional means of hosting. More companies are currently taking the initiative to minimize the impact data center emissions and other commonly used resources have on the environment.

In our case, we do several things to be environmentally friendly.

1) We are 100% hydroelectric.
2) Standard hot-aisle containment for reducing wasted cooling capacity.
3) We utilize free-cooling by intaking external cold air when the temperatures are correct.
4) We utilize a high efficiency cooling tower, which has cut our water consumption 80%.
5) We reduce e-waste by recycling servers.
6) We utilize Intel Atom servers wherever possible.
7) We recycle all shipping materials we receive. Cardboard, paper, cans, etc are recycled in accordance with Washington state law.
8) Used packing peanuts are delivered to local shippers rather than thrown out.

It may not be much, but it's something.

Wonder if I am green? Office as well as home are solar/wind powered and unconnected to the grid(except for phone) but my servers are not -- wouldnt want to take a chance on no power! But I have been off grid now for close to ten years.

There's tons of greenwashing out there in my opinion. Off hand, I can only think of one company that I actually believe is doing solar-powered hosting and that's AISO.net

Buying carbon footprint offset credits is, in my opinion, absolutely not green whatsoever. It's not helping even the slightest bit. The credits are traded wildly to the point of oblivion and have been investigated many times and proven to be fraudulent.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has actually been to and seen the setup of a solar-powered or wind-turbine powered hosting company with their own two eyes, and can offer comments on their experiences with the hosting quality provided by them.

It still contributes to the cause in my opinion.

agreed, every little bit counts in this world. Yes some may be greener than others but you must remember that even a little contribution can go along way if everyone does the same.

agreed, every little bit counts in this world. Yes some may be greener than others but you must remember that even a little contribution can go along way if everyone does the same.

I agree to an extent - every little bit does count. But if you are giving a certain impression I think you need to be doing what people expect. You can't claim to be 100% green if you are not doing everything possible.

The best way to promote that your company is green is via PR releases and articles.

First thing I have in mind for the word Green hosting would be the implementation of VPS servers. Does it make sense?

I think being 'green' is the next big thing.

Mainly for business they would like to promote how 'green' they are so if the host is, thats a plus for anyone.

Daniel

Greenwashing is indeed rampant.

Much of the movement is misdirected. Well intentioned however.

90%+ of places selling green services have purchased offset credits. In simple terms - they pay another company some money to do something to offset their pollution - like planting trees, adding wind power into grid, etc.

Almost no one could run a colo facility on green power. Unless we tapped stored geothermal or natural gas/methane pocket on property. Those are not renewable enough in my opinion to be green. Wind and solar are too variable and too expensive to run a datacenter.

So if you want to be green in this category do something different and do it yourself. Plant trees for every so many dollars. Replace lighting in your facility. Invest in those reductions as you net income.

One thing I see overlooked a lot in the green hosting is blade servers. We started replacing standalone servers with blade type servers and power consumption drops dramatically. I am surprised to not see more doing that. As Atlas posted, pulling in the fresh air helps a lot with being more efficient on cooling.

It is true that nobody bothers about green services. But, weightage is given to green services above others and it makes a great difference.

some best feature for Green Web Hosting
1.try to make your server less consumable of electicity if you are providing green web hosting.
2. Try to add some best valuable offers for non-profit organizations.
3. And also best offfers for small companies

What are your thoughts on Green Web Hosting companies, because I myself have setup a small business providing green web hosting for an affordable price, but just wanted to know what ways of advertising I should use, and whether you are bothered about whether it helps the planet or not.

can u tell me the digeerence between web hosting and green web hosting?
Plz let me know.

Green Web Hosting use alternative / renewable energy, plant trees, recycling waste and purchase RECs to power their datacenters. as General Webhosting would be identical to your typical house, has city grid power, diesel generator etc.

Are they truly "green" though? Most companies say they are green but what they are really doing is offsetting their energy use by buying wind certificates or credits. They aren't truly wind powered. Does that make them green?

This is just my opinion but REC's are not green. Getting your power directly from a wind farm is though.