Sunday, July 5, 2009

Benefits of Green Web Hosting Exposed

By Lance Leipheimer Roy Hayles Jay Newman

We all know how web host companies use huge servers which are managed in their datacenters. Green web hosting is the process when web hosts use renewable/alternative energy, recycle waste, plant trees, purchase Renewable Energy Certificates and employ other such measures to power their datacenters with which their customers can feel good about their role in saving the planet.

Green web hosting wasn't a very popular topic until a few years back. It's only recently that this initiative has caught some limelight. When it started, there were a limited number of companies that started the go-green movement. Over the years however, the entire industry has caught up with the pioneers.

Today, such is the craze of green web hosting these days that even some of the bigger providers have had to switch to it. And the good thing is that slowly but steadily, web hosting industry, that is an integral and rather important part of internet industry, is transitioning towards greener and more efficient operations. However, there are still a very few companies that have gone the distance in becoming 100% (to the extent that it's possible) green hosting providers.

Green Web Hosting is one of the few companies that claim to be 100% green. The employees of the company take measures such as telecommute to reduce carbon emission caused by transportation. In the same vein, there are other companies adopting policies like to avoid the use of papers completely so that the number of trees fell for meeting the needs of the paper industry are reduced.

Going one step further from not cutting trees, few companies actually come up with a nice and unique idea of committing to plant a new tree for each new customer that they sign up. Likewise, there are some companies that actually offer financial discounts by the means of special packages to the customers who are working for environmental causes with their websites.

Some people are not sure about the effectiveness of a green web hosting platform. They question about how far they can perform and can be relied upon. It has been scientifically proved that renewable energy is as effective and reliable, like conventional electricity or even more. The proof for this is the increasing number of web hosting companies that are going green day by day. The output of these companies is not anywhere behind the less-green peers of theirs.

Going green requires some heavy expenses. Even after bearing the costs required for the initial requirements, they eventually do pass on the costs to the customers making their service more expensive. Thus, they are not favorites in terms of expenses.

Nonetheless, the good thing is that companies that are willing to take up that little extra cost in exchange of having a role in saving their planet and as is the law of business if these organizations can somehow sense some moneymaking/saving opportunity by going green that'll definitely get them going.

About the Author:

No comments: