In recent times, the internet is growing its way at an unprecedented rate. Also, we can observe a global shift towards sustainable and renewable energy which is clearly reflected in the behavior and attitude of both businesses and customers. We have experienced that it has come a long way from plain text content to content with multimedia formats including multipurpose images, video, and audio parts. All this content is hosted on servers that are stored in data centers. These servers help worldwide to handle everything from corporate websites to people’s blogs. However, this creates an intense condition that is to be maintained properly as it can have a harmful impact. Therefore, these servers need to be kept operating in cool and controlled environments. Because they require a large amount of energy and have significant emissions of carbon dioxide which makes them less suitable for our natural environment.
However, along with the growth, not many people are aware of some drawbacks associated with it. An unsafe or unprotected website environment is as dangerous as any other industry’s negative impact. Therefore, it’s becoming the need of an hour to approach and look for ideas of safe and environment-friendly web hosting providers with evolved and sustainable plans for future endeavors. The impact of the internet on the environment makes it crucial to go green with your websites and secure both your present and future. And it is possible to achieve eco-friendly web design and hosting services through a service called Green Hosting.
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What is meant by Green Hosting?
Web hosting providers need a large amount of power to make these servers work and keep the data centers operative to provide 24/7 services to the users. Maintaining proper cooling and safety equipment which comparatively consumes more energy is also a challenge. All these servers, users, and networks require energy to run, and that energy is generated through burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. Such a large amount of energy consumption impacts negatively on the environment and contributes highly to adverse climate changes as well. Therefore, as the name suggests, another kind of web hosting solution is provided to ensure nature’s safety by using environment-friendly resources. Keeping this in mind, ‘green hosting’ means that the server which powers the websites around the globe is running off the electricity to the servers through a renewable source.
Renewable energy is produced by natural resources such as sunlight, hydro, and wind power which are often the most used natural resources because they don’t require burning fossil fuels. That makes them more efficient and clean energy resources. Moreover, nowadays some web hosting firms are taking an eco-friendly approach by adopting a few initial practical solutions such as using more efficient server hardware systems to reduce power consumption. It is really important to learn the reason behind the importance of Green Hosting in order to completely understand what it is.
Benefits of Green Hosting:
The most important benefit of Green Hosting is that it is a combination of economically and environmentally considerate solutions to host your website on an online platform without causing any harm. It helps companies seek Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) and Carbon Offset Certificate (or VER) certifications too. It does not matter how much carbon footprint you reduce, the only thing that matters is your contribution and initiative towards the green grid. It is not just about efficient operations to reduce carbon footprints, it also reduces energy costs charged by the firms.
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How is Green Hosting incorporated into firms?
Adapting Green Hosting does not mean that every firm generates its own green energy to keep its system running. If a provider likes to be associated with Green Hosting, then they should approach certified green energy suppliers who can sell them green tags as per requirements. For each Green tag purchased, a certified green power supplier will enter the amount of energy set on the grid on behalf of the web hosting company that purchased the mark. It is so because the cost for the generation of electricity is comparatively extremely high. But, with any kind of renewable source energy, it turns out to be affordable. However, it is still an expensive technology when it comes to meeting energy needs.
Therefore, using a green energy provider is a great way for web hosting companies to eliminate their energy consumption without having to generate energy on their own and participate in Green Hosting. It is a great way for a company to become accountable for its own use of energy involving recycling programs that provide the company with carbon credits. These credits allow businesses to eliminate the carbon print they have contributed globally.
