This year’s Earth Day theme was ‘Investing in Our Planet’, so when it comes to our field of work – web hosting – how can individuals make a difference?
The obvious answer is to invest in Green Hosting. Here’s why.
The internet is power hungry
When it comes to surfing the net, the use of one’s power is less well known. But it all adds up, especially when 63% of the world uses the Internet.
Most people do not consider the large infrastructure behind modern web serving networks. The vast array of servers needs power and cooling so we can view kitten gifs or upload our own dinner photos.
The estimates
Here are some facts and figures about the Internet’s contribution to global warming. Note that these are estimates, so sometimes the sources are different.
- The Internet is responsible for about 3.7% of global greenhouse gases.
- This is higher than that produced by the airline industry: 2.4%
- This is equivalent to 400 grams of CO2 which is emitted by every person on the planet.
- Internet usage is expected to double every year by 2025.
Video streaming – Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, etc. – accounts for 75% of global data traffic.
How much energy is required for…?
Most of these figures are provided by this excellent article by Energuide.be.
A data center
A router uses 10 kW, and a large data center can use 100 megawatts. This is 10% of the production of thermal power station!
Obviously, they are all average. RabHost data centers with a high efficiency of 1.12 will use less electricity.
An email
A 1 MB email emits 20 grams of CO2 in its lifetime. If you create and send 20 emails a day in a year, that is the equivalent of a car traveling 1000 km.
A web search
This is 3.4 Wh or 0.8 g of CO2. It is estimated that if you do an average of 2.6 searches a day, you will emit the equivalent of 9.9 kg of CO2 per year.
Watching an hour of streaming TV
It may be nature’s documentary, but it doesn’t help nature: about 55 grams of CO2.
One year’s web browsing
Annually, each person needs about 365 kWh of electricity and 2,900 liters of water for cooling. It’s the same with the environment as driving a car 1400 km.
Other internet-related industries
Shopping at home is great. But the preparation and delivery of all these deals puts pressure on the environment.
Then there is the preparation of all the infrastructure: data centers, cables, even the sending of satellites.
In addition, there is the production of tools that everyone uses to access the web. COVID-19 didn’t help because everyone went out to buy new laptops and office supplies to work from home (join me: I don’t want to preach!).
RabHost Green Hosting
Climate change is a certainty. Even if we reach a net zero of greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century, we will still see a 1.5 ° C increase in global temperature.
So what can we individually do to reduce our Internet carbon footprint?
One small step is to consider using a hosting provider that runs an efficient data center on renewable energy.
RabHost Green Web Hosting runs on 100% renewable energy: solar, wind and biofuel.
By investing in our hosting, you are investing in our planet. You will get better website performance without having to resort to carbon footprint.
Read more about our Green Web Hosting or check our WordPress Hosting, Web Hosting, Managed Hosting or VPS.
