Why I switched to a more eco-friendly web host

Do you have a website or blog? If you do, there are eco friendly web host providers out there to choose from.

Please Note: This post contains links to GreenGeeks web host, which is who I use – I am in their Affliate Program, and get a commission if you use my link to sign up with them. All opinions about them in this article are my own.

I’ll get this up here straight away. Here is my link if you want to start using GreenGeeks as a web host – I do get a commission from referring people to them.

Starting a blog – I just picked the web host mentioned most online!

I started my blog on eco living, zero waste and sustainable living back in 2019. You can read my story about why I changed my life focus on my About Me page.

For the first two years, I had a self hosted WordPress website, hosted by web host company Bluehost. A ‘self-hosted’ WordPress website through wordpress.org means that you pay to be hosted by a web hosting provider, rather than creating a free website through wordpress.com. You can read about the differences in website types at this article at WPBeginner (a fantastic resource for new bloggers using WordPress).

Setting up my website was relatively easy with the help of resources online. And I was happy enough with the web host Bluehost.

Moving to a more environmentally focused web host

However, coming up to my third year of renewing and paying for hosting, the fees from Bluehost increased dramatically. I started researching alternative web hosts, and asked other bloggers who they used. Many recommend other web host providers, such as Siteground, Lyrical, Dreamhost and GreenGeeks.

When I looked into what GreenGeeks offered, and their three year price offer, I felt they were the right web host for my blog. Their attitude to running a more environmentally friendly business appeals to me and fits in with my aim to live more sustainably.

Energy use in the Internet industry

During my research into web host providers, I found that the internet industry uses a huge amount of energy. To run internet services, data centres around the world house millions of servers. These are powered on and running all day and night.

The servers use a large amount of electricity to run, and also require cooling to make sure they don’t overheat, which would make them fail. It’s estimated that 40% of the energy used to power the internet is used in cooling systems to keep the servers from getting too hot.

The data centres use electricity from their local power grids in the country they are located. Many countries around the world rely on fossil fuel such as coal to power their electricity grids. This means that they are producing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases.

According to GreenGeeks:

In 2012 there were 500,000 data centers worldwide. Today there are over 8 million data centers worldwide, an increase of 16 fold in 7 years.

www.greengeeks.com

Data centres account for more than 2% of global carbon emissions, which amazingly, is equivalent to the whole world’s airline industry! And this is expected to rise to 14% by the year 2040:

Currently the global carbon footprint for data centres accounts for more than 2% of global carbon emissions (the equivalent of the world’s entire airline industry), with the number expected to rise to 3.2% in 2025. By 2040, data storage is predicted to account for 14% of the world’s carbon emissions.

https://www.zelladc.com/insights/how-is-your-data-centre-affecting-your-carbon-footprint

There must be ways to avoid this growth in the pollution caused by something that so many people use now, and has so many benefits for us all.

Reasons for switching to a more ‘green’ provider

I want to make a difference to the world, through the small actions I can do. One of these is to use a more eco-friendly web host.

Looking in to GreenGeeks, I found that they have committed to these actions:

• Designed their platform with a ‘no waste of resources’ approach,
• Built their hosting platform to be as energy efficient as possible,
• Matching every amperage of power they use with three times that in renewable energy via the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and
• Plant a tree for every hosting account they provide.

GreenGeeks has also been recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as a Green Power Partner.

My experiences with GreenGeeks

I swapped to GreenGeeks in June 2021. The transfer process was easy, however I had not given my previous host enough notice (30 day) to switch my domain name registration, so I had to leave that where it was for another year. I will start the process to swap this to GreenGeeks next month, so that both my hosting and domain name registration are with the same company.

The customer service has been excellent from GreenGeeks. They respond quickly to emails, and followed up on some questions I had when I transferred.

I like their Dashboard page, and find it easy to access my WordPress Dashboard as well. NB the WordPress Dashboard stays the same when you transfer to a new web host provider, it’s just in a different place on the new hosts pages.

In conclusion

I recommend using GreenGeeks, if you want to switch to a more environmentally conscious web host provider.

Here is my link if you want to start using GreenGeeks as a web host – I do get a commission if you sign up to use them.

Welcome your comments on switching website providers, please comment below.