Ars Subtilior

Greener Hosting

Posted by Dominik Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Yesterday evening (GMT) it came to my mind that I don’t know about a dedicated “green” hosting provider. There are a lot of cheap hosting providers, but cheap often means that they use cheap energy to power their servers, and cheap energy currently translates to coal or nuclear power. Now after our last move to a new apartment two and a half years ago my wife and I decided to select the “regio”-energy program of our local energy service company. In this program we pay 1.8ct (Euro, approx. 2.7 ct US Dollar) more for each kWh, which is used to support the construction and operation of renewable energy sources.

I would pay more for my web hosting, if I knew that the increase price would mean less CO2 emissions. http://www.co2stats.com is making a case of purchasing carbon offsets for your website. It’s a good idea, but it would be even better if I knew that my site wasn’t producing any CO2 to start with. My thought yesterday evening was that there could be market for “green hosting”, and it either isn’t tapped yet, or I haven’t found the ISP’s who are committed to our environment.

And then, this morning I see Google’s announcement, which shows that I’m not the only one who is thinking about this.

The question is: Would you pay more for web hosting, if it would reduce the CO2 emissions produced by your web site?