The Environmental Cost Of The Internet by Shaun

Web hosting servers require a lot of power both to run and to keep cool; that means a lot of associated carbon missions and a significant adverse effect on the environment. While technological advances have allowed datacenter service providers to upgrade to more energy efficient hardware in an attempt to save power and money, the major motivation behind these upgrades is often financial rather than environmental. Furthermore, the fact still remains that associated carbon emissions will typically be high. In a related article (technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece) from the reputable Sunday Times newspaper, the authors commented that various experts put forward carbon dioxide emission estimates for a single Google search lasting several minutes at 1g-10g depending on the time involved and the equipment used. The carbon dioxide emissions for boiling the average kettle are 7g. Not a lot? Think again - the Google search engine alone performs hundreds of millions of searches everyday. Combine that total with the power requirements of all the other search engines available and all the webhosting servers out there on the web and the resulting carbon emissions start to look astronimcally large. This means that even the simple process of searching the web, nevermind fully utilising some of its more server intensive websites and applications, will result in significant carbon emissions.

While many users of the web can do nothing to change this directly, those of you who own hosted websites can. So what can you do to help neutralise these carbon emissions while at the same time enjoying the services of a web hosting company? The answer is easy - choose a web hosting company that uses servers in datacenters that are powered by eco-friendly technologies to minimise your impact on the environment. One such company is SaffronHosting.com. SaffronHosting.com are proactive in choosing service providers that share a similar eco-friendly vision, and their shared hosting packages use servers in datacenters that are powered by eco-friendly wind technology. Their datacenter provider purchases Certified Renewable Energy Credits generated by wind farms in the USA; their RECs represent approximately 130% of the electricity used to power and cool datacenter servers. This means that environmental impact is not only being neutralised, it is being positively affected!

Furthermore, SaffronHosting.com use their success to help others by making contributions to registered charitable causes around the world. Customers of SaffronHosting.com can even suggest a charity to make a contribution to! You can follow them at twitter.com/saffronhosting.