What do I mean by “green”?
Over the past few years the word “green” has grown from simply describing the color we see in the visible light spectrum with a wave length between 520 – 565 , into a word that suggests environmental responsibility, renewable resources and sustainabiliy.
Of course, marketing gurus have wasted no time injecting the word (and color) into every advertising format imaginable. NBC has “Green Week” every year that forces all of their shows to cover environmental topics. Knowing the power of “green”, I even wedged it into the title of this article. Hey, that’s why you’re reading this article, right?
During 2008 the phrases beginning with “green” could be seen everywhere, and that’s why some say the “green” fad is dying. Our emerald adjective suffers the fate of all things popular: Overused and Abuse. Green washing may be on its way out, but environmentally responsible business is here to stay. Truly responsible businesses will include their website in their plans to go green.
The Facts:
Your website consumes power on two levels.
1. The electricity used by the server your website’s files are hosted on.
2. The electricity used by the computers of your website’s visitors.
While you can’t control the efficiency of your visitors’ computers, you can choose which company hosts your website.
The Problem:
A typical website hosting company simply plugs into the local grid for power and doesn’t ask any questions. The power company could be burning endangered animals for power and they would be none the wiser. As long as the power is on they’re happy.
The Answer:
An environmentally responsible hosting company uses clean power to host your website. These companies are either “Carbon-Free” or “Carbon-Neutral”.
Carbon-Free: They generate power on site through solar, wind, or other renewable means. No additional carbon is produced by the hosting of your website. You can sleep easy at night knowing your saving the world.
Carbon-Neutral: They “nuetralize” their carbon pollution by purchasing credits. These credits support the generation of power by renewable sources that is fed back into the grid. This does support the renewables industry, but still consumes non-renewable resources and produces carbon pollution. Some Carbon-Neutral will also plant trees for each new customer or something similar, but that still doesn’t get around the initial pollution produced.
Carbon-Neutral hosts are popping up all over since the only change that a company has to make is in their budget. However, Carbon-Free web hosts are harder to build and, therefore, harder to find. Here is a list of the best Carbon-Free website hosts I could find:
Carbon Free Web Hosts
Solar Host
Web hosting that doesn’t cost the earth.
(UK)
AISO
Web hosting as nature intended.
(USA)
Solar Energy Host
(Canada)
For more website hosts with a mixture of Carbon-Free and Carbon-Neutral services check out some of the companies in this directory.
The choice is yours. If you really want your website to be “green”, go “Carbon-Free”.
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