Green Hosting: One Small Step Towards a Sustainable Future

Green Hosting: One Small Step Towards a Sustainable Future

Guest Post by Nora Varga

The Internet as a Polluter

Did you know that the internet is a major polluter? According to the Web Neutral Project, the internet produces about 2% of global CO2 emissions annually – the same amount as the aviation industry. And if the internet was a country, it would be the 6th largest consumer of electricity on the planet [1]. These are alarming numbers. But how does the internet pollute?

Energy-Hungry Data Centers

All of the data that we access though the internet is stored on servers either somewhere in Canada, or outside of the country. Our emails, our Instagram accounts, and the websites we visit are all stored in large data centers. In these data centers, servers are stacked on top of each other in racks, and they are powered up and running all the time [2]. Not only do these servers use a lot of electricity, but they also generate a ton of heat, so they need to be cooled continuously. When we are “online”, our data travels from the data center to our device and back, which also consumes a lot of energy.

Big Tech Promises Action

Fortunately, there are some promising initiatives out there. In the EU, 63 data center operators and 22 trade associations have signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, promising that they will make data centers climate neutral by 2030 [3]. The “Big Five” tech giants – Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft – have also made commitments to reduce their carbon footprint in the next couple of decades [4], [5]. All these initiatives are encouraging, but we are still far from a climate neutral future.

Simple Steps to Take Right Now

While big corporations have the most influence to start a paradigm shift, we can also help on the individual level by using the internet a bit more responsibly. As Digital Tattoo contributor Sasha Krieger points out in her blog post, we can help by simply watching less Netflix or YouTube, since streaming media is one of the most energy-consuming online activity [6]. According to the Web Neutral Project, “streaming one hour of Netflix a week requires more electricity, annually, than the yearly output of two new refrigerators” [1]. Other studies found that video streaming accounts for about 60% of all data flow in the world [7]. If all of us consumed a little bit less online video, we would already be making a difference.

Green Web Hosting

Many of us will launch a website at some point in our lives, either for personal or for professional reasons. If we do so, we can help the environment by choosing green hosting. Green hosting companies lower the ecological costs of website hosting by various means. They might power their data centers with renewable energy sources, implement energy efficient algorithms and cooling systems, or offset their energy use by purchasing renewable energy certificates [8]. When a company buys renewable energy certificates, a clean energy supplier first calculates the data center’s power consumption. Then the hosting company purchases at least the same amount of clean energy from the supplier which is fed back into the grid [9].

When choosing a hosting company, you should also consider whether or not your website will be hosted within the country. Once your data leaves Canada, it is subject to the laws and regulations of the country it is located in [10]. It is unlikely that this is going to cause you any trouble, especially if you are not storing other people’s information. But to keep things simple, it is a good idea to choose a local data center.

Below are three green hosting companies, some of which you might have heard of. Besides being green and having data centers in Canada, all three meet the industry standards of regular website hosting companies. There are also other options available and you are encouraged to do your own research before you choose a company.

	GreenGeeks	HostPapa	Web Hosting Canada
Why is it Green?	• Offsets its power usage with 300% clean energy • Plants one tree for each new hosting account	• Offsets its power usage with 100% clean energy	• Powered by renewable energy (hydroelectricity) • Uses eco-friendly cooling with outside air and water
Services	• Web hosting • VPS hosting • Reseller Hosting	• Web hosting • VPS hosting • Reseller hosting	• Web hosting • VPS hosting • Reseller hosting • Dedicated servers
Website Building	• Easy-to-use website builder • WordPress support • WooCommerce support	• Easy-to-use website builder with e-commerce support • WordPress support • Web design service	• Easy-to-use website builder • WordPress support
Data Center Locations	Global, including Canada	Global, including Canada	Canada
Number of Websites Hosted [11]	600,000+	500,000+	130,000+
Pricing starting at (as of December 19, 2021)	$3.80 per month	$3.95 per month	$3.89 per month

Discussion

Have you ever launched a website? Were you previously aware of green hosting as an option? Feel free to share your thoughts below!

References

[1] Web Neutral Project, “The Problem: How the Internet Pollutes,” Web Neutral Project, 2021. https://webneutralproject.com/the-problem (accessed Oct. 03, 2021).

[2] “Green Web Hosting – Going Green With GreenGeeks®.” https://www.greengeeks.com/going-green (accessed Oct. 27, 2021).

[3] “Signatories – Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact.” https://www.climateneutraldatacentre.net/signatories/ (accessed Oct. 27, 2021).

[4] “ClickClean,” Click Clean. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/clickclean/ (accessed Oct. 27, 2021).

[5] L. Paddison, “Big tech’s pro-climate rhetoric is not matched by policy action, report finds,” The Guardian, Sep. 20, 2021. Accessed: Dec. 17, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/20/big-tech-climate-change

[6] S. Krieger, “Guest Post: What is Your Digital Environmental Footprint?,” Digital Tattoo, Apr. 20, 2021. https://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/2021/04/20/guest-post-what-is-your-digital-environmental-footprint/ (accessed Sep. 28, 2021).

[7] “‘Climate crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video’ : Our new report,” The Shift Project, Jul. 10, 2019. https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/ (accessed Dec. 17, 2021).

[8] M.-A. Karyotakis and N. Antonopoulos, “Web Communication: A Content Analysis of Green Hosting Companies,” Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 2, Art. no. 2, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.3390/su13020495.

[9] M. Williams, “Best green web hosting of 2021,” TechRadar, Jun. 25, 2021. https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-green-web-hosting (accessed Oct. 03, 2021).

[10] S. C. Canada, “When Your Data Must Stay In Canada |,” Server Cloud Canada, Oct. 17, 2017. https://www.servercloudcanada.com/2017/10/privacy-law-canada/ (accessed Oct. 23, 2021).

[11] S. Gant, “Best Web Hosting in Canada – Here Are 4 Options (2021),” Tech Daily, Oct. 02, 2021. https://techdaily.ca/web-hosting-canada (accessed Oct. 23, 2021).

[12] “Web Hosting Canada | Canadian Web Hosting, Domain Names & Servers,” Web Hosting Canada. https://whc.ca (accessed Oct. 27, 2021).

[13] “Canadian Web Hosting | Web Hosting Canada | HostPapa.” https://www.hostpapa.ca/ (accessed Oct. 27, 2021).

[14] “GreenGeeks: Web Hosting Canada – Fast, Scalable & Eco-friendly.” https://www.greengeeks.ca/ (accessed Dec. 19, 2021).

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Written by: Nora Varga, UBC, School of Information

Edited by: Brittanny Dzioba & Alex Kuskowski