Green Hosting is the latest trend these days with all popular web hosting companies going green for energy saving and a better environment. HostGator offers Green Web Hosting. and is among the leading web hosts for green web hosting The IT sector has a huge impact on the climatic condition. Between three to four percent of all electricity used in the world is used to run data centers. One of the four and a half million registered users of Second Life avatar consumes 1,752 kWh of electricity per year, or about two third that of an actual person. One server alone has impact the environmental climate roughly by the same extent as a 15mpg SUV. Climate change is real, as it is quite evident now with all that’s happening now. People from IT industry desperately need to reduce on IT emissions. Waiting for the government and NGO’s to solve the problem is going nowhere. Hence HostGator has joined the ranks of many progressive companies including: Starbucks, IBM, and UPS to take action on addressing climate change.
HostGator has been practicing green business and that too in a big way. HostGator hosting is purchasing wind power credit to offset their power usage by data center and servers, thus creating a carbon neutral green energy environment for their web hosting services. Over the recent year, many hosting company goes green as well, for example fatcow and ipower hosting is following the green hosting path too. HostGator hosting is now a Green Web Hosting company, with own wind farm in Texas home estate. HostGator now wind powered their shared & reseller servers. Yet the customers need not to worry about power failure, as the power is used to neutralize the environment impact. The shared hosting plans at HostGator are still 99.9% uptime guaranteed.
HostGator has Integrated Ecosystem Market Services, who are very proud to have worked with HostGator to develop a sector-leading program. Green hosting is an important step in dealing with climate change. HostGator stand out in this regard from most of its competitors. HostGator’s program stands out because of number of reasons.
* HostGator is using renewable energy to not only power but also cool its servers, whereas a number of green hosts only use it to power their servers. This is a big difference because servers generate a lot of heat. For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are generally required to cool it. This means that HostGator is investing in about twice the renewable energy on a per server basis.
* HostGator has invested in Green -e certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
About REC:
Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are tradable credits representing all the environmental benefits of 1 megawatt hour of renewable energy. HostGator purchased 4,009 Texas wind RECs and is paying a Texas wind farm to generate renewable energy on HostGator’s behalf. HostGator doesn’t own the wind farm, but for every REC purchased by HostGator, wind farm generates 1 megawatt of Texas wind power. HostGator draws power and claim credit for that wind power generated on its behalf.
HostGator has invested in Green -e certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). That means that all of HostGator’s RECs are verified, tracked and monitored. Sure, there are cheaper carbon credits out there, but HostGator wanted to go green the right way. HostGator can’t very well build a wind farm in downtown Houston, so it’s doing the next best thing and greening its energy at the source with rock solid RECs. HostGator has purchased RECs for one hundred thirty percent of the electricity used to power and cool its shared and reseller servers. By far other green host that has gone this far. HostGator has invested entirely in wind RECs generated in their home state of Texas. By insisting on 100% Texas wind RECs HostGator had to pay more for their credits, but they can rest easy knowing that they’re doing their part for the environment and the local green economy.
Developing and implementing the greening program
The total amount of electricity used by HostGator was calculated for shared and reseller servers. Based on the total number of servers and the average amount of electricity used in a year to power and cool them, it estimated that HostGator would need 4,009 MWh of electricity to offset 130% of the electricity used to power and cool all of HostGator’s shared and reseller servers. HostGator looked at HostGator’s carbon offsetting options and considered RECs, Certified Emission Reductions and Verified Emission reductions, as well as a number of offset providers. Ultimately, HostGator chose to go with RECs, and to purchase them from one of the best REC providers around three Degrees. HostGator emphasis on purchasing of Renewable Energy Credits only represents HostGator’s most recent step toward sustainability. Prior to the REC purchase, HostGator had already begun the process of reducing their environmental impact at the office (recycling, minimizing paper use, etc.), and recently switched to higher efficiency servers.
User contributions in Green Hosting
Users can also contribute a lot by switching their hosting company to a green host. They by this move will not only make our planet earth a better place to live but also will make contribution towards the future of the planet. Moreover, they can also go green in their personal life. Most of the steps are totally painless, for example turning off their computer when not required, rather than leaving it in sleep mode. Many of them will save user money in the long run, for example using compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent.