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Green hosting, also referred to as Eco-friendly web hosting, is a web hosting company that operates their website servers without having a negative impact on the environment. These companies strive to attract ethical consumers and make the world a “greener” place. Green hosting services also use Green Marketing to help decrease the demand on the Earth’s resources. Green hosting consists of many efforts such as carbon offsetting, reducing energy consumption, planting trees, and using energy saving equipment.

Most companies go green by using a carbon offset, which is a financial instrument intended to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere. When companies purchase a carbon offset, they help fund projects that reduce the release of harmful gases into the air and aid in planting trees.

Companies also buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) or “Green Tags”, which use energy created by a green source such as solar power, and wind power.

Green web hosts often use virtualization to share resources between customers to create efficient use of server hardware. This concept has the potential to significantly reduce the number of servers that consume energy. As well, Green web hosts use more Eco-friendly web servers. Some use two servers that are located in the same box that use the same power source to reduce energy consumption. Others use “speed stepping”, a server technology that decreases the voltage and heat that a server uses, particularly during peak usage times.

The layout of data centers can decrease energy usage from the positioning of the air conditioning to weatherizing the center.

Many web hosting companies are using additional methods to become green or greener web hosts, such as using propane gas as a back-up energy source, installing solar panels, using data centers that are solar powered or driven by windmills, having telecommuting employees, having a paperless office, and creating incentives for alternate work transportation.

Green hosting is valuable to everyone because it helps save the environment. In the United States alone, non-green data centers used as much energy power as 6 million homes in 2005. The energy usage is projected to increase 2 fold by 2011. The planet will only be able to sustain this amount of energy for so long and it is important to start decreasing energy consumption to help save the planet and create a better world for everyone.

Many green web hosts provide unlimited worldwide access so there will be less travel, more time, less carbon dioxide, and more money. Employees of large and small businesses can work from anywhere so they do not need to travel to an office. Signing up for e-documents is also a green practice. Consumers and companies use less paper which saves more trees and decreases carbon dioxide. E-documents allow users to save them in a file on their computer or email and reduce the amount of paper clutter in their homes and companies. Green web hosting can cut heating costs by using energy saving heating appliances, which saves money and reduces carbon dioxide. Also, when people work from home an office does not need to be heated.

It can often be difficult to choose a green host, as there are a lot of opinions on which companies are green enough. When choosing a green web host, consumers and companies must take into consideration what they think is important and weigh the pros and cons of each host. In general, any company that is doing something to save the environment is a better choice than a host that is doing nothing.

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