Why use Green Hosting?

Published: 13th Sep 2017 in Ethical Business,  Green Hosting

As ethically-minded business owners we are always looking to be more responsible in the way we work and in the things we purchase to run our business. Often it’s the immediately obvious things that are dealt with first, like buying recycled stationery, using eco-friendly packaging, cutting down on waste and using like-minded suppliers. However, one service that can often be overlooked is the hosting for your business website.

The problem with website hosting

You might wonder what impact website hosting can really have. But the powering of data centres and cloud computing run on fossil fuels is coming close to rivaling the aviation industry as a major contributor to global carbon emissions. That is a big deal!

With over 3 billion online users currently and with that figure set to climb to 7.6 billion by 2020 it is easy to see where this is going. The demand for online data will continue to grow and along with it the electricity needed to power the data centres (as well as keep them cool and functioning properly) and as a result an increase in the pollution produced from fossil fuel power generation.

Using website hosting to reduce your carbon footprint

Hosting your website on servers powered by renewable energy is a real way of making sure your business is kinder to the environment.

Our green website hosting is powered 100% by renewable energy, all year round. Our Centro data centre in London, which houses the hosting servers, routers and cooling systems runs entirely on wind generated electricity from UK wind farms (belonging to ScottishPower Renewables). Because the energy is supplied via the grid, the power does not stop if the wind isn’t blowing, nor does it need to fall back on fossil fuels. It remains as reliable as ever and as green as always.

Our data centre isn’t wasteful with that green energy either. It has been designed and built to use electricity as efficiently as possible. By extracting hot air from the building and using naturally cold outside air through the water based chillers, the cooling systems do not need to be constantly at full power as they would in traditional data centers, meaning they use less energy. Win!

Run by a Green & Ethical Business

We are committed to keeping our hosting service green to the core. Since we founded our business in 2004 we set out to make sure it had as little negative impact on the environment as we could.

We have full environmental and ethical policies but here’s a quick list of the things that are important to us:

• We use a renewable electricity provider to power our office base.
• We recycle as much as we can from the office including paper, equipment and e-waste.
• We use suppliers with positive eco credentials and we seek high quality, energy efficient computer equipment.
• We actively choose to sell our web and hosting services to responsible and positive businesses and organisations only. Take a look at our Clients page and you’ll see that if you choose to use Green Hosting you’ll be in good company.

Find out more at green-hosting.co.uk