Data Centres Should Aim To Reduce Carbon Footprint
In the last few years, the necessity to facilitate a greener and more eco-friendly attitude has grown to become more than simply a trend, but a real move towards a cleaner future.
Web hosting is no different from other energy hungry industries such as automobiles or housing, as huge amounts of power is needed as the internet continues to expand and the number of websites multiplies daily. The demand on web servers becomes heavier and a greater and greater amount of energy is required.
What Exactly is Green Web Hosting?
Green web hosting essentially looks to drastically reduce carbon emissions, by using low-voltage equipment, more efficient cooling technology and harnessing renewable resources such as solar or wind energy to power the servers. Web hosting providers such as 1&1 have shown the massive difference small alterations can make, lowering heat loss from their power supplies by 20%, and reducing their carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes every year.
The focus isn’t just on clean energy, but also in making sure that toxins in impaired or older computer equipment is disposed of without an adverse effect upon the environment.
Wider Movement
A report by the NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council) claimed that United States data centres used 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2013, the equivalent to powering every house in New York City twice over. Other industry predictions have stated that data centres are likely to become a larger greenhouse gas emitter than the aviation industry by 2020.
However steps are being made by major companies to ensure that their data centres are as eco-friendly as possible. In California for example, a law states that 33% of electricity produced must be from renewable resources by 2020; Facebook recently built a data centre in the Arctic Circle in Northern Sweden, whereby temperatures can drop to below 40 degrees Celsius allowing engineers to cool down servers by natural means; and Google’s operations are already powered by 35% clean energy and they publish their efficiency data to the public every quarter.
Slowly but surely, ‘going green’ is becoming less and less something to talk about, and instead, simply the natural way of being.
About the Author Staff Writer
Our writers come from all over the world, but one thing unites them - their passion for sustainability.