Almost everything we do these days involves using energy that probably is derived from fossil fuels. Whenever we are driving a vehicle, powering our homes and offices, and reading this page on a computer, we are using energy. Burning fossil fuels produces Carbon Dioxide among other things and this gas is thought to be responsible for Global Warming.
We can offset the carbon dioxide produced by using energy in a number of ways. One way is to plant trees, and the average annual amount of carbon dioxide they absorb during their life can be balanced against the carbon dioxide we produce. If they are in balance, then this is called carbon neutral.
So what is Carbon Neutral Website Hosting?
Website hosting simply means using a computer to store your website. Every website is stored on a computer somewhere, and that computer is using energy.
We have calculated how much energy a website uses and therefore how much carbon dioxide is produced to provide that energy. We plant trees to offset this carbon dioxide.
How many trees does it take to offset a typical website?
A typical website will be on a shared hosting plan, meaning it will be stored on a computer with other websites. We make the following assumptions for a typical website: -
- Our servers use no more than 300 watts of electricity. The data centre's air conditioning and lighting will use, per server, about 50 watts of electricity.
- A typical high-performance web server will host between 100 - 200 websites.
That means an typical website will use at most 3.5 watts of electricity. Over the period of a year, the power consumption of a websiteis less than 30.7kWh. This equates to a lot less than 0.01 tonnes of carbon dioxide produced per website per year.
Assuming the following about a typical tree:-
- It will live to be 100 years old
- During its life is will absorb 100 tons of carbon dioxide
- This means as an average each tree will absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide
- One in ten trees we plant will die from disease and other causes
So, in answer to the question, it will take 0.01 of a tree to offset a typical website's carbon footprint.
How many trees get planted per website?
Since we cannot plant 0.01 of a tree, we plant one tree per typical website (dedicated servers and bigger hosting plans may well require more trees, but in our typical example we assume a medium sized website).
So by planting one tree, we can offset the carbon emisions for over one hundred websites. The extra carbon offset can be used against out energy used to design your website on our computers (our power is supplied by green tarrifs), as well as our fuel used to visit you, energy used to telephone you and other energy related costs.
By hosting your website with us, you can be sure that it will be carbon neutral, helping you to become carbon neutral. You can be sure that we are doing our bit to help you do your bit to save our planet for future generations.
If you like to sound of this, and want to know more about our services, then click here to make an enquiry. As always, you are under no obligation and can change you mind later.