Get a green website

If you're building a website, you need to park it somewhere. But did you think about all the energy needed to power the servers that keep your web pages safe? Check out some of these web hosting companies that run on solar and wind power instead. There was some buzz earlier this year in Wired and elsewhere about solar web hosting, but I didn’t find any advice about how those services stack up against each other.  Here's proof of this writer's OCD: another chart. Click on it to enlarge and read; continue to the end for more details (see earlier charts comparing green cell phone plans and car sharing services, and green "megatrends").

Some of these green web services, such as Elfon, throw in free domain name registration. AISO offers dedicated and collocation packages for businesses. Oakland’s Sustainable Marketing offers a whopping 1,000 MB of storage for just $10 a month. Locomotive Media sells an impressive 500MB of storage for the same price, but its site was down when I was touching up the research—not so reassuring. SolarHost specializes in business plans. Others include The Green Web Host Inc. and EcoSky. 

“So does this mean when it’s not sunny out that I can’t log onto www dot greenerpastures dot com?" asked Brendan. "Do they have a windmill out front?" Tee hee, not quite.

Wired thought in June that “as well-meaning as they are, these gestures aren't likely to have much of an impact on the world's overall energy consumption -- at least not until major data centers begin to follow the lead of the boutiques.” But why let that stop you from checking out these upstarts, especially since their prices are comparable to their on-the-grid rivals.

[I should embed these charts instead of saving them as gifs and jpgs, but mercy please; I'm in a hurry here and the cafe's closing. Tell my roommate to pay the #*$@ ComCast bill.]

Comments

[home security]

I just started constructing mine, hope it will be finish by the end of the week.

[oakley frogskins]

So, you can try our hosting for $1. Sorry we can't offer it free, but we're not allowed to! Use this promotion code on the sign-up page:

[Oakley Sunglasses Discount]

This is fantastic! Love everything about it. And so good to hear from you...I've missed you bunches.

[Organic Clothing]

This is a great list. We will look into this for our company.

[Gren Website]

Getting a green website is a great idea, you can certainly get one here:

http://GreenWebsite.net

Also, i think that Google's servers are going green, it might take a while, bt that is their vision and goal.

[Steven Craig]

What about having your web site powered by solar....AISO (http://www.aiso.net) is 100% solar powered, both their servers and data center are powered by onsite solar panels. And they also have a partnership with Co-Op America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Green Building Council. Plus, they are doing more then just making sure their electricity is green. Their data center and office is green too by using environmentally friendly air conditioners, solar tubes to bring in natural light, a propane powered generator instead of diesel, VMWare virtualization to reduce their server electricity usage, 6 watt energy saving desktops computers for their employees, and soon to be LEED certified as a green data center, the only public one in North America, at least that I have found so far. So as far as the environmental concern, I think AISO is more concerned about the environment then any other of its competitors will ever be.

[Steven Craig]

What about having your web site powered by solar....AISO (http://www.aiso.net) is 100% solar powered, both their servers and data center are powered by onsite solar panels. And they also have a partnership with Co-Op America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Green Building Council. Plus, they are doing more then just making sure their electricity is green. Their data center and office is green too by using environmentally friendly air conditioners, solar tubes to bring in natural light, a propane powered generator instead of diesel, VMWare virtualization to reduce their server electricity usage, 6 watt energy saving desktops computers for their employees, and soon to be LEED certified as a green data center, the only public one in North America, at least that I have found so far. So as far as the environmental concern, I think AISO is more concerned about the environment then any other of its competitors will ever be.

[Michael Bloch]

Hi,

Thanks for this post and for supporting green web hosting!

I just wanted to make mention of our company if I may :). ThinkHost is powered by 100% renewable energy and our package The Plan offers a great range of features:

http://www.thinkhost.com/options/

By the way, at the moment we're running a special offer - free setup and your first 2 months free; or if you email me directly at [email protected]; I'll happily provide readers of thegreenerside a coupon for 6 months free hosting :).

[Ivan Storck]

You guys rock for posting about us! Thanks!
Everyone that sees this comment can use this coupon code for $9 off their first month of hosting costs. So, you can try our hosting for $1. Sorry we can't offer it free, but we're not allowed to! Use this promotion code on the sign-up page:

buygreen

BTW, the new website is:
http://www.sustainablewebsites.com - that has all the latest info.

[Don Bosch (evaneco.com)]

My blog's (evaneco.com) been hosted by AISO for a year now, after leaving blogger.com for just that reason. Great support from the folks up there. Very happy with it. Email me at evaneco at gmail dot com if you want more info.

Cheers,
db

[Enviroman]

I supposed it is too much to expect Blogger (blogspot) to be hosted on green servers :-(