Green hosting: what and why

As a green hosting web company, we know that data centres require a tremendous amount of energy, which is why we are working hard to achieve carbon neutrality.

Try to imagine how many websites there are online… its billions. All this content is hosted on servers housed in data centres across the world.

From the comfort of your homes/offices, you sign up, pay and manage content digitally and never even step foot in a data centre instead they use a web host who takes care of everything for them.

Running these servers uses a lot of power. They need to be kept running in a cooled, controlled environment. So they require a large amount of energy and have a significant carbon dioxide (CO2) output. That makes them less than optimal for our environment.

In fact it uses so much power that UK data centres account for 12% of UK energy consumption and 3% of all global energy.

So how can hosting companies help?

Hosting companies should be making a commitment towards providing green hosting solutions for all their customers. Green web hosting relates to web hosting companies that actively try to carry out eco-friendly initiatives to mitigate their impact on the environment.

There are several different approaches that you can adopt for your hosting. we encourage all our customers to think about the environmental impact their hosting has.

What is the most eco-friendly option?

Cloud! A recent study at CWCS, showed that a cloud server uses 88% less power than a dedicated server.

When choosing the right hosting solution for your business, one of the biggest choices is between cloud hosting and physical hosting.

Cloud hosting is a cluster of Dedicated Servers and SAN storage which are virtualised. Many virtual servers can be hosted from a reduced hardware footprint which significantly decreases the amount of power used for a single server. These servers only exist in a virtual environment – hence the name cloud.

To find out more download our brochure here.