[LINK] Carbon-neutral web hosting

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Ivan Trundle wrote:
> Dear Linkers
> 
> My organisation is involved in a carbon audit as part of a wider-ranging 
> plan to be carbon-negative (carbon-neutral is sooo last year), and I 
> stumbled across the thorny issue of web hosting costs (environmental, 
> not just $$$).
> 
> In my research, I have only found one company in Australia that offers 
> carbon-neutral hosting services, and not many others around the rest of 
> the world. Interestingly, many of these claim to be able to achieve 
> carbon-neutrality by planting tress - and the jury is out on this as an 
> effective strategy.
> 
> The sums are staggering - the amount of energy consumed by the servers 
> of the world has more than doubled in the period 2000 to 2005, mitigated 
> by the fact that many newer servers consume much less power. And on a 
> local level, our local electricity company wants to build a huge data 
> centre, which got me thinking about the cost to our environment.
> 
> So if anyone is interested in adding to the pool of knowledge concerning 
> carbon-neutral hosting companies in Australia, I'll start with Ilisys 
> [http://www.ilisys.com.au/], a WA-based company that not only uses 
> nothing but renewable energy (coal and oil, in this context, are 
> not...), but also assesses its carbon footprint for car and air travel 
> by staff, too.
> 
> For standard users, the cost of hosting ($20/month) is not too shabby.
> 
> Has anyone got more information to add here?
> 

I heard that the ACT government was setting up a Low Carbon Footprint Technology
Park/Server Farm. Gas not solar powered.... Funny how we used to talk about 
renewable fuels once...

I also came across something about some research on Linux...here is a starting
point for the topic...
<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288477,00.htm>

The carbon credits for planting trees is popular but I agree just planting trees
seems mind bogglingly insufficient - see my notes and links to calculators at
<http://www.ramin.com.au/eco-sydney/carbon.shtml>

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au
Phone: (+61)0414 869202