"Green" Hosting? How Important Is It?

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Sidular

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I've been seeing a ton of "green hosting" services, with a new one seemingly popping up every other day.

Does it really matter if your hosting services are 'green'? I've always been an environmentally friendly person, but honestly, I see this whole green hosting thing as being just another marketing trend. A new way for hosts to take advantage of the consumers, and the current worldwide trends and interests of our society.

What are your views on green hosting? Would you pay extra to host at a green host? (or if you operate a hosting network, would you pay to invest in a green datacenter?)
Does it even concern you?
 
You got it pretty much figured out, a marketing trend :) (nothing wrong with that)

Yes, the hosts do take different approaches to make their services "green" but as a consumer you will not notice anything drastic. For consumers, they tend to like "green" providers just because they're being eco-friendly. Obviously not everyone cares about being eco-friendly, but those that do that happen to need hosting services might find a "green" host to be more interesting.

As a provider, there can be some cost savings if you truly setup a "green" facility. How much? That I can't speak for as I never really looked into it personally but I know there are some pros to having a "green" facility, one being costs.
 
There are some folks who abuse the term and claim to offer web hosting services produced from 100% Green technologies. In order to say that one needs to get power from Renewable energy sources (solar or wind). Now go to any energy map of North America and try to find a data center which depends on renewables... good luck.

It is reasonable to use technologies which reduce the carbon emissions however and/or to use low voltage servers, which use less power.
 
HostColor said:
In order to say that one needs to get power from Renewable energy sources (solar or wind).
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True, but even Datacenters that say they are 100% Green are not and cannot be either.

Solar power/Wind power will never produce the same or enough power to operate a full DC, so these DCs still will need conventional power sources
 
It seems to me green hosting is a part of hosting services which are able to meet the needs of a certain group of webmasters.
 
OBH-Peter said:
It seems to me green hosting is a part of hosting services which are able to meet the needs of a certain group of webmasters.
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but then if you look from the eyes on an end user how would you actually know your host is green apart from them saying so on their website.
 
GreenHostBox said:
When hosts say "Green", they mostly mean renewable energy. Green has in helping the planet by using less resources
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I think the highlighted words mostly mean says alot that Green Hosting is just a marketing gimmick as what you say is that renewable energy is not always used, so therefore cannot be classed as Green Hosting
 
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Since you consider yourself environmentally conscious, you may want to seek out green hosting. Yes, some hosts use it as a marketing gimmick. Usually you can dig up some information on the hosts' website to see why they consider themselves green and you can always contact their sales staff.

Speaking from our perspective, it's not a "gimmick" and we specifically lay out what we do. Our visitors do seek out the information on our site.
 
BradatA2Hosting said:
Since you consider yourself environmentally conscious, you may want to seek out green hosting. Yes, some hosts use it as a marketing gimmick. Usually you can dig up some information on the hosts' website to see why they consider themselves green and you can always contact their sales staff.

Speaking from our perspective, it's not a "gimmick" and we specifically lay out what we do. Our visitors do seek out the information on our site.
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but as Green Hosting means getting power from Renewable energy sources (solar or wind), but these alone cant provide full power needed at a datacenter, just like if you have solar panels or wind turbine for you home, this only produces a fraction of needed power, so you still need conventional power sources to run alongside Renewable energy sources (solar or wind), so therefore it cant be 100% Green
 
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As a customer I have looked at it as a gimmick so have not chosen a host based on that. I would think how ever that some going green things a host could do would save them money. Like buying servers that use less energy.
 
going for GREEN hosting doesnt matter much.it doesnt effect the environment at big extent.so its your own wish whether you want to go GREEN or not.
 
Hmm...I have a big problem with the whole "going green" campaign and how businesses use it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for not destroying our planet. Personally, I wouldn't pay an outrageous amount to just have a green host. I also look at, "What does it cost (in $$ and in environmental waste) to get the host going green in the first place." For me, that is what I have a hard time understanding. If it costs more money and more harm to the environment over the lifetime of the product, how is it "Green?"
 
I would pay more for quality service. But not just because they're green.

It never affected my decision when looking for hosts. I'd go with the most reliable and trustworthy one whether they're green or not.

Chad
 
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