Green hosting - why this is growing in importance for larger businesses

Environmental issues are playing an ever larger part in many areas of business, and with carbon offsetting measures and new legislation coming into effect, 'going green' is expected to be a requisite for companies in all fields in the very near future. Responsible and forward-thinking business owners are already looking into ways to reduce the environmental impact of their operations across the board - and one area that can reap great eco benefits is web hosting.



There are many features it's important to look for when choosing your hosting provider, including reliability, cost and the level of support offered. However, you may not be aware that you can also find web hosts committed to fighting climate change with specialised green hosting packages that can pass on this conservationist approach to your business.



The explosive growth of web hosting is great news for businesses looking to reduce costs and improve flexibility by outsourcing their servers and other operations, but this growth could come at a heavy cost to the environment if hosting providers are not taking steps to minimise their carbon footprints. Forecasts suggest that the web hosting industry could be producing as much pollution as airlines by 2020, making it ever more imperative to seek out hosting companies that take environmental protection seriously.

This is about more than simply using renewable energy sources to power data centres, though this certainly plays a vital role in lessening a company's dependency on fossil fuels. From data centres built near sources of clean energy, such as wind farms or hydroelectric dams, to centres set up in cooler areas to benefit from natural server cooling, the location of your servers could lead to a major reduction in your carbon footprint. The technology used inside the data centre contributes to this reduction further, with new server types such as Dell AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon being much more energy-efficient than older models.



Beyond hardware, your hosting provider's attitude towards environmental issues could be a key factor in your decision. Even in the digital realm of web hosting, companies still go through a lot of paper and other office supplies, and many hosting companies are committed to recycling as many of these as possible to minimise waste. You should also check whether your hosting provider is involved in carbon offsetting projects to counteract the damage of new expansions, such as planting trees that will help you mitigate the carbon generated by your daily business operations through green hosting.