Green Hosting Options

I am a web developer as well as someone very interested in sustainability and helping the environment. Green Hosting, or hosting that is carbon neutral, is something I am naturally interested in. I am currently in the process of shopping for a new hosting service for a few websites I take care of for other people as well as for some personal projects. I am taking this opportunity to find options that offer less environmental impact.

Over the last couple of days I have been researching what options are out there. Below is what I have learned and hopefully it will help you if you ever decide to make the same switch. My goal is to have all my web hosting carbon neutral by this time next year (when all my hosting accounts will have cycled through renewals).

I will break down the 5 options I see out there and then let you know which one I am choosing and why.

1. Buy Your Own Offset Credits – Just keep doing what you are doing and do enough research to figure out the carbon footprint of your hosting use. Buy carbon offset credits to neutralize your footprint. This is harder than it seems. There are a lot of questions about how companies use offset credits, so this requires a lot of research and you need to answer for yourself which companies are doing it in a way you agree with. I suggest buying credits directly from a wind or solar farm.

Resources: How to buy carbon credits (Ehow.com) | Carbon credit price comparisons

2. Use Hosting that Buys Credits – Same process as above, except the hosting company does all the math for you.  A lot of hosting companies are offering these options these days for a little extra cost. For some hosting companies this is the only option, without a geographical move or a massive investment. One major con, is since they do all the research and make all the decisions, you have less control of the quality and legitimacy of the offsets. One good option in this direction is Dreamhost.

3. Use Hosting that Buys Green Energy – With more and more utility companies building and buying into green energy from wind farms, solar panels, and others – more hosting companies are investing in these options. This is better than buying credits as it is a direct buy of green energy and encourages utilities to invest even more in these solutions.

Resources: ThinkHost | HostPapa | HostGator

4. Use Hosting that Produces Green Energy - Not all of these companies are 100% carbon neutral, but many of them are very close. Their costs and uptime look pretty competitive. I plan to start using these guys as a green options when I pitch clients. My only hesitation to switching all my hosting to them is a lack of knowledge of their multi-domain options and additional services that I need. Further research is needed here, will keep you posted.

Some, but not all, in this category (from Treehugger.com):

5. Use Your Own Green Powered Servers – Buy and setup your own servers, build a wind turbine in the back yard, load up the rooftop with solar panels, and bask in your carbon neutral glory.

Did I miss any great Green Hosting options out there? Let me know in the comments. Also, which option are would you choose?

UPDATE: In response to this post I had requests for a second post on Green Business Card Options

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  • SaibotNY
    Great post. I have a server with hostgator but wanted to research additional options.. Thanks for the head start.
  • James
    a UK based green hostingprovider to add to your great list. :)
  • We started using green web hosting a little over a year ago. Wind Power is very popular around here. There are several large wind farms within 15 miles and several home owners that produce their own wind power. Thanks for writing about carbon offsets.
  • Tom
    Another Green Hosting provider to add to your list, GreenGeeks!
  • Just switched to hostgator in large measure because they are green... I also buy carbon credits... but I didn't figure in my hosting use... this stuff isn't easy is it. Thanks
  • Nice post! We share the same feelings on green web hosting. As a web designer developer, I feel the need to work on having our clients be environmentally conscious about hosting.
  • Great article. Here's a list of green web hosting companies that are 100% wind and solar powered, for your interest
    http://www.greenwebsitehost.com/list-of-green-web...
  • Brilliant article. Never really thought of the impact I could make as a designer. I thought I was doing something choosing my FSC papers and finding printers that bought credits.

    Never even considered having some green hosting.

    Great resource. Thanks.
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