Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Green Hosting : Green Hosting

[willid]

Can some one please recommend a green energy hosting provider.

thanks

[Sparrow-Sean]

Hostgator seems to be one of the more reputable Green provider to myself

[Phil McKerracher]

I've looked for these myself because I run a renewable energy site, and there aren't many decent green hosts around. Hostgator claim to be green for shared or reseller hosting but not for VPS or dedicated. I currently use imountain.com because they are (partly) solar powered and have good support. Host Europe claim to be carbon neutral and have some good VPS plans, which I'm trialling.

Germany and Canada seem to be the places to look, because they have renewable energy available. Personally I'm skeptical that paying to have a few trees planted is really solving the problem - I'd rather use a host that is powered 100% by hydro, wind or solar but I haven't found a good one.

[Serverfruit-Kris]

I don't think there are a huge market because it is not a hot topic - mainly because of people haven't seen so many consequences of the global warming yet.

However, it could be a good way to market a hosting company if they really had bought it.

[willid]

The reason we are looking is because we are looking at offering websites to green energy companies in the area where we live and would think they would like the idea of falling in line with running everything green.

Ideally it would be good if there was a UK company offering Green hosting !!

[Serverfruit-Kris]

What about buying up enough energy yourself, so whenever there is used energy, you buy the same amount of green energy. This of course would not mean that it was green energy you would get, but I would say you could still market it as energy neutral since you ensure that the energy are produced again with green methods.

[ldcdc]

Originally Posted by willid

The reason we are looking is because we are looking at offering websites to green energy companies in the area where we live and would think they would like the idea of falling in line with running everything green.

Ideally it would be good if there was a UK company offering Green hosting !!

The one hosting company I know of to be green in more than the typical marketing sense is AISO.

No hosting company can be truly green though. Some of the stuff that goes into their equipment is dangerous for the environment, even though it's not CO2. Sometimes people behave as if pollution was invented when global warming occurred. We had serious pollution problems way before that, and will continue to have them even after we come up with a solution for managing out CO2 emissions.

[AriesHostingdotorg]

The only green web host I know of is GreenGeeks.com, which uses 300% renewable energy. That's right, they give back to the grid!

<<snipped>>

[GASB]

Leaseweb has servers in EvoSwitch datacenter.

EvoSwitch has reduced energy consumption by more than 50 percent, providing its customers substantial cost savings. EvoSwitch operates on a climate-neutral basis and cooperates with the Climate Neutral Group, to compensate for non-sustainable energy consumption at EvoSwitch.

[TheJoker]

http://www.rochenhost.com/about/green-hosting

[Brian_R]

Originally Posted by Phil McKerracher

I've looked for these myself because I run a renewable energy site, and there aren't many decent green hosts around. Hostgator claim to be green for shared or reseller hosting but not for VPS or dedicated. I currently use imountain.com because they are (partly) solar powered and have good support. Host Europe claim to be carbon neutral and have some good VPS plans, which I'm trialling.

Germany and Canada seem to be the places to look, because they have renewable energy available. Personally I'm skeptical that paying to have a few trees planted is really solving the problem - I'd rather use a host that is powered 100% by hydro, wind or solar but I haven't found a good one.

There is a list of countries and their grid CO2 emissions at a post I made http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpo...0&postcount=11. Canada is quite high up, Germany less so.

It doesn't cover North America to state/province level but I understand Quebec and Washington are 2 places with largely hydro power. I'm sure there are a couple others also.

[BDesigns]

The only green reseller web hosting provider that I can think of is GreenGeeks.com, which uses renewable energy.

[Phil McKerracher]

Originally Posted by Brian_R

There is a list of countries and their grid CO2 emissions at a post I made http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpo...0&postcount=11. Canada is quite high up, Germany less so...

Interesting. It's arguable that even a company that purchases 100% renewable energy may not be benefiting the environment at all, since renewable energy is generally in short supply and already sold, which means all they're doing is driving up the price of it (which is not necessarily bad, since it increases investment).

Interesting also that Australia is so low down, given that I come from there and I know there are a couple of large hydro schemes and there's so much solar available.

[Brian_R]

There is a CO2 calculator spreadsheet based on this data at www.datacentre.biz. I initally pulled it together to as a ready reckoner for my own use, but thought others might find it useful or at least interesting. (Just input some Mickey Mouse details if you don't want to give your details).

And if anyone can supply some definitive sourced data for the US states and Canadian provinces, I'd be happy to add it in.

[WebhostGIANT-Rob]

I think that first of all when you chose web hosting provider you think about uptime and performance of your web hosting service. Only then you can think over the energy which web hosting companies using. And I assume you will be happy to discover that your web host which you are using is green but not vice verse I think.