Sustainable Hosting: Why is it important?

Did you know that the average website produces 1.76g of CO2 for every page view? Emissions from web hosting contribute to global heating and climate change because of the energy needed to run our devices and power the wireless networks we access.

The carbon footprint of our devices which use the internet accounts for 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, and this is only expected to rise as our tech becomes more developed.

So, where is this pollution coming from? While we can’t forget about the emissions from the manufacturing and shipping of technology companies across the world, the main factor is the constant powering and cooling of our devices. Generated in different ways with varying emissions, electricity is needed for the internet. Something as simple as an email has an estimated carbon footprint of 4 grams of C02. 

Technological advancements are often seen as simply beneficial and more sustainable than using physical alternatives. However, there’s been recent controversy over how much energy is being used by modern technologies like cryptocurrency. Music, video streaming, gaming — and now art — are increasingly moving online. That means a lot of new data to store, and depending on the company, the energy created to store that data isn’t always green.

The Problem: Data Centres 

Data centres are physical facilities that house routers, servers and other web storage systems which support the internet. Data exists and is connected across multiple data centres, the edge, and public and private clouds. The data centre needs to communicate across these multiple sites, both on-premises and in the cloud. The servers which power the web have to run constantly and need to be artificially cooled to work effectively. This obviously takes up a lot of energy, considering there are over 7.2 million data centres across the world. In fact, data centres are responsible for approximately 2% of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s almost the equivalent of the entire global airline industry.

However, there are ways to make data centres and servers more eco-friendly. Here at After Digital, that’s what we’ve been investigating. We’re actively looking to convert our current hosted sites to more sustainable options and make these readily available to our clients.

This is considered by our design teams when creating websites. The more complex a site is, the more energy it takes to run. Something as small as changing the format of your pictures or the font you use can have a big impact. Consider carbon minimisation principles when designing on your own site.

While technology has reduced the amount of physical resources we need (like paper), the carbon emissions produced from manufacturing, powering, and cooling our tech adds up. Making the internet greener should be the next step in sustainability.

How can we combat this?

One of the most effective ways to reduce a website’s carbon footprint is to switch to a green web host. Here at AD, we take our green credentials seriously. While we know we’re not perfect, we're always working towards making our business as sustainable as we possibly can.

We’ve taken steps in a lot of areas, whether it's planting trees to offset carbon or investing in our B Corp ambitions. But one area that we’ve been focusing on recently is website hosting. We're always looking out for fast, reliable web hosting for ourselves and our customers. Now, we’re searching for more sustainable ways of developing for the web.

Our Solution: Green Web Hosting

Green web hosting is all about mitigating your impact on the environment. It refers to web hosts who carry out sustainable or climate positive initiatives to offset their carbon.

We work with Amazon Web Services (AWS), who in 2021, made a commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. As part of Amazon.com they have made the commitment to increase funding to develop their technology to achieve this pledge. In 2020 they became the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, reaching 65% renewable energy across their entire business. 

Here at AD, we want to ensure that we offer not only the best hosting options to our clients, but that these options are also sustainable. That’s why we have been working to move all our client websites and internal sites over to AWS hosting as all their servers run off renewable energy— meaning no fossil fuels! 

If we can make simple yet effective changes to our practices, we can work towards meeting our own green targets, whilst  supporting our clients in achieving theirs! 

You can check how green your website is today with The Green Web Foundation’s hosting checker.