The internet and its associated services growing exponentially never before. Billions of websites are
Hosted and still growing the hosting industry. Without hosting company a domain owner can not establish their reach over the internet unless the person should construct his own server setup and associated infrastructure, Which is bit constantly for an individual.
There are contents such as media and audio platforms are making Billions of dollars through the internet. That means the requirement of web hosting never ends.
The reason for writing this article are mainly,
How the website becomes a polluting agent and How Green Hosting word comes into the market.
The whole contents of our websites are stored into a server, which itself acting as a polluting agent. I am not talking about a single server which causes a problem. I am talking about the acres of datacenters are making internet carbon footprint. These massive datacenters are using a high volume of energy to serve their purpose.
The environment of these servers to be kept always cool, the always means up to the life span of data centers and running 24x7x365 days. So they emit Carbon monoxide as an output of high rated energy consumption.
According to The Guardian estimated releases 300 million tones of CO2 per year, when the internet works.
It is very difficult to estimate the carbon emission by meters. Moreover, we found all the things work virtually. Facebook had invested $210 million to build a massive datacenter at Princeville, Oregon which is consuming 28 megawatts of energy. The whole campus of Princeville is consuming 78 megawatts of energy. They constructed an intelligent cooling system that uses the cool air from outside for efficient cooling and reducing the cooling cost.
What is Green Web Hosting?
The energy-efficient system implementation with low energy consumption servers will be the next step for the green hosting. Anyway, we can not avoid the cooling systems from the data centers. It is a mandatory element for the workings.
So Green Hosting is the method of hosting websites in environmental friendly, greener data centers. The datacenters are towards an eco-friendly approach for limiting the CO2 emission from their end. Companies like Facebook and Google had invested in solar, wind power plants. Obviously, every hosting provider is not going to invest in this.
If say greener for the hosting, then they have to produce more than they consumed through the grid. The generation of power and its operation is another infra headache and all the companies are not ready for the implementation of power plants.
So the renewable energy-producing companies are offering Green Tags for their businesses. The hosting company is investing in Green tags and the energy-producing company will supply the electricity to the grid on behalf of the web hosting company.
There are several certificates are provided by the energy-producing companies. These certificates are called green certificates. Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) and Carbon Offset Certificates (VER) are the major certificates.
Renewable Energy Certificates (REC)
The certificate also is known as Green tags, which is used as common Green web hosting tags. The average electricity used by the datacenter calculated and they purchase more than that of consumption from power plants, who were working in renewable energy sources.
Then the energy company fed back to the grid, stating that the Webhosting facility replaced the power to renewable resources.
Carbon Offset Certificates (VER)
There is the distinctive purpose of REC and VER certificates. Where REC complices the energy production and VER ensures the emission of carbon is should be as per norms of the country.
Carbon Offset Certificates are somehow reduced the greenhouse gases during the working of datacenters. There are several structures that emit CO2 frequently and the VER certificate authority checks the installation and provides certification for the same.
Benefits of green web hosting
In this virtual era of digitalization, you have to think about how much CO2 gas is emitting and How badly affecting the earth. The environmental way of hosting will save equally our earth. The energy conservation always made a note on every field and still have high value talking this.
Environment lovers should always go for green hosting
The people who are gone for this web hosting always keep reduce the carbon emission from the datacenters and they are supporting the company to reinvest in renewable energy sources. That’s how it found an equilibrium in this matter.
The performance never is an issue with the energy conserved datacenters. Every hosting company ensuring the hardware should be using a minimum of energy. The cooling system can be put in the optimum setting to save energy. The non-usable or failed products should be safely disposed of without causing damage to the earth.
Let’s look at the features of Green hosting companies and understand how they become Green.
GreenGeeks
They are well known for green hosting and environmentally supported datacenter owners. The GreenKeek are incorporated with Bonneville Environmental Foundation for purchasing 3 times of their current power usage.
In 2009 the company recognized by the United States Environmental protection Agency as Green Power Partner.
They will provide 300% green badging for your website also. Hence they provide 3 times energy REC purchase.
DreamHost
Currently, DreamHost hosts 1.5 + million websites and 750k + WordPress installations on the internet. owned the Carbon Offset Certificates (VER) and Renewable Energy Certificates (REC).
Their website could not found any Green badging, after thorough inspection, we found that they care about the environment by using their office energy efficiently with more declaration can found regarding the datacenters.
The facility of the DreamHost is LEED platinum and energy certified. Using LED and low mercury high-efficiency CFL lighting throughout the offices. Datacenters are using the high efficient cooling system with a power-efficient processor whenever possible. The partners of state-level are in clean wind programs. The gids procure the power is working with renewable energy sources.
A2 Hosting
A2 hosting is partnered with Carbonfund.org to offset the carbon footprint. The Carbonfund.org ensures less CO2 emission from their servers. Also, they work for reforestation for environmental development and ensures the CO2 emission on a lower scale.
More detailed understanding of their Green Hosting practices.
The employees of the offices work mostly work from home so that the daily commute CO2 emission to be reduced. The servers which are in older state reused for dedicated clients or used internal server implements. Also, reusable servers resold for the public. Planting 3 trees for every hosting package purchased by the customer for a given month. Reusable mugs are used internally for saving the trash of disposable glass. SSD is mainly used for hosting purposes rather than a traditional HDD.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is another eco-minded hosting provider. After 2010 they concentrated for reduce carbon emissions in datacenters. As a result, they opened the first-ever Green Datacenter in LA. The specialty of the data center is all about the cooling system.
The major energy was consumed for an uninterrupted cooling system. The traditional cooling system called Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRACs). They utilize outside cool air and also hot air from the servers is vented out, eventually the whole server rooms cool down. This technology significantly reduced their energy demand and 70% of the cooling costs being reduced. The count of carbon emission will be nearly 2000 tones per year, which is also reduced.
They also try to minimize the wattage of the products which are being inside offices and recycling the old servers. Thus they go for the Green processes.
InMotion also ensures the planting of trees as a part of the Eco policy. So they incorporated with Trees For The Future (Trees.org) a nonprofit organization for reforestation to plant 5000 trees for ecology sustainability.
iPage Hosting
iPage is well known as a cheap Webhosting company. The conserving energy and reduce the power usage with the limiting of carbon emissions are carefully done by the iPage hosting. They purchased RECs and VER for proving those Eco methods. iPage purchases RECs, twice their power consumption and providing green badging for websites. Thus can ensure the green policy for the clients. Also ensuring the emission of carbon at their datacenters to be reduced and certified with the entity, who provided the VERs.
Final words
In this Green, Hosting technologies are now hot buzz on the internet. The reduction of carbon emissions and supporting the REC providing companies are another method of eco policymaking. The above-said companies are certainly made a huge difference among others, and some of the companies are not advertising their green projects, which I feel confusing. Recycling and reducing digital waste are another method of supporting earth to reduce pollution. In my opinion, every hosting provider should invest in renewable energy projects and reforestation companies. Thus they can equalize the power usage with greener energy and made earth cleaner.
Author bio
Shiju, a WordPress lover who was working as a technical analyst for hosting companies and blogger at Discover Your Blog.