Internet usage and Green Web Hosting
Whether it’s Netflix, Zoom meetings, emails, online schooling or social media, our lives become more Internet-dependent every day. In fact, since the onset of the global COVID-19 lockdown, online usage has seen a staggering 70% increase.
The Internet makes the world more accessible, more entertaining and keeps us connected with family and friends all over the world. Unfortunately, while we get to enjoy all of these benefits, most of us have no idea the toll this additional web usage is having on the planet.
Web hosting providers consume a significant amount of energy to power servers and data centres for providing 24/7 services. Other related facilities, such as cooling controls and enhanced security setups also require a lot of electricity.
Though the energy required for a single Google search or email is small, approximately 4.1 billion people (or 53.6% of the world’s population) are now actively online. Which means that even those small, relatively insignificant amounts of energy add up massively when you consider the scale of usage.
If you consider that 80% of the energy used to power data centres currently comes from fossil fuel power stations, this causes enormous harm to the environment which makes Green Web Hosting an essential consideration for any web-based company or service.
So, what exactly is Green Web hosting?
Green Web Hosting (or eco-friendly hosting) is web hosting which uses renewable energy sources like wind, water and solar energy, to either power the web servers or to offset the energy used by the web servers to reduce environmental impact.
Why is it important?
According to Buycpanel.com, Green Web Hosting is not only a benevolent move towards the Earth but is also one of the means to pragmatically reduce carbon footprints.
Some other benefits include:
- Energy Efficiency
- Cost Saving
- Certification
- Renewable Energy
- Protocols
- Shared Hosting
- E-Waste
How do I know if my website is Green?
To check if your current web host is using green energy, visit The Green Web Foundation, enter your website’s URL and hit the CHECK key.
If your site is hosted green, a big green smiley face will appear, and an option to download the green badge (and display it on your website) will become available.
If your site isn’t currently hosted green, you’ll get the bad news via a banner with a grey frowny face. Send this on to your hosting company, encouraging them to go green or you’ll take your business elsewhere!
How difficult is the process?
Tenacity Works recently obtained our Green Web Hosting status and found it to be a relatively simple process.
The only slight bump in the road was our status not changing once we had migrated to a green host. We contacted The Green Web Foundation who responded almost instantly. They assessed the problem, and we discovered that it was a caching issue which we corrected immediately.
Where do you find a Green host?
We did a fair amount of research while hunting for the perfect hosts, you could start by checking out these suppliers we found. Or alternatively, do some digging of your own and find a host that works best for you and your business.
Find a full list of green hosts here: https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/directory/.
Conclusion
This is the only planet we’ve got. And while it is easy enough to ignore, we need to face the fact that our web usage is a major environmental problem. With a little time and effort, you and your business can help lower the ecological cost of our online lives.
PS: Top Tip from Tenacity Works!
In our current state of high-resolution web imagery, strong image compression can shave a considerable data cost of each webpage. Squoosh is an image compression web app from Google that allows you to use a variety of image compression standards to drastically reduce your image sizes.