Why is green WordPress hosting important? When you consider which web host to use, do you also think about the impact on the environment? Probably not. The Internet is just a tool to buy sports tickets, watch movies, and go shopping online. It doesn’t have any bearing on climate change or preserving the planet for future generations.
You may be surprised that web pages and hosting both impact the Earth a great deal. Please think of the massive amount of electricity needed to support all those web pages we view. Consider the waste produced by outdated technology that is no longer in use. The amount is truly staggering once you start to think about what it takes to power something as large as the Internet for the world population. This is why a list of the best green WordPress hosting matters!
What can be done?
With emissions coming from hosting on par with even airlines, the problem is very grave already. We all understand that the Internet will keep expanding. This is a positive thing, for the most part. Third world countries can start to rise and get on equal footing with more advanced countries. Poor people can take out loans to advance a business. Information to save resources in a remote village can now be spread and shared easily.
The downside of the Internet is that the need for more electricity is going to accelerate. Countries are shifting over to renewable sources of electricity, but how long will it take before this shift is done? We have known that carbon emissions will be a problem for decades now, but the move over to solar, wind, and hydro has been slow. How can we pick a host that cares about going green?
The Footprint
Our Internet is no longer what we started with decades ago. Every time we turn around, there is some new service or aspect we never thought of before. You have things like YouTube where now people can learn anything. This might range from cooking to changing out parts on your car. The Internet has also evolved to allow you to order a taxi to pick you up anywhere that you might be. Have food delivered to your location from your favorite restaurant even if they don’t offer a delivery service.
The point is that the Internet has morphed to a point that it is far beyond what anybody expected. As time continues, it will continue to evolve at a high rate. We have no idea how many people will be using the Internet in the future and we have already had to change how we identify IP addresses. As platforms like TikTok and YouTube become more popular, you are going to have a giant amount of user content that needs to be stored in some area. If you created a YouTube video over a decade ago, that content is still sitting on the system. They never deleted it if the user has not deleted it. This trend will only continue.
With more storage needed to keep up with all this new content, it requires more servers, more machines, and more data centers. These take up resources and the amount of resources is increasing each day. These facilities are massive and they hold the data for blogs that are small as well as data for our most important companies. These servers need to be in climate-controlled environments and that takes energy. Many times this energy comes in the form of electricity.
Our Impact
Where does all the electricity come from that is needed to run our servers and data centers? Unfortunately, as wind and hydro struggle to keep up, many times it is coming from coal-powered plants. Even with ways to filter out pollution when the factories are burning coal, mining this resource devastates the landscape.
Many times the workers that are in the coal mines suffer from physical problems, stuck digging deep underground and accumulating injuries as time goes on. Their lungs also pay a heavy toll as they collect the resources that power our way of life and the economy. When you add this cost to the footprint that we have put upon the Earth, it is not hard to see we need to make a change.
Many countries are making the shift to renewable energy. People are pursuing electric cars and seeing what can be done with nuclear power. This problem is so massive though, we need to attack it from all angles.
Are you doing your best to reduce carbon dioxide output? When you pick your host for all your data, you can go with a host that cares about the environment or one where it doesn’t matter to them. It is important to be aware of the hosts that are doing something to lower their carbon footprint. Some hosts will plant new trees. Others will donate back electricity equal to what they use for hosting. Still others will find new ways to cool the machines. There are many ways to attack this problem.
We want to look at the best hosts that care about the Earth. What are they doing to help with the environment? How can you take advantage of great service while you still have reliable coverage? You never want to put your business at risk while you are also working to help the environment. We cover the hosts that have found that balance.
Our opinion – the best Green WordPress Hosting in 2021:
1. Hosting Forest
One of the best options for a green WordPress hosting host is Hosting Forest. You can already tell from the name; they are focused on the environment. What else can they offer you?
- Thirty days to try out the product
- Very fast load time for your site
- Around the clock support
- Automatic backups
- One-click installs to build your site
Those aspects are good from a customer’s point of view. You are going to get a solid host that goes down very rarely. Your company won’t have to worry about complicated instructions to get running. You can even try out the service for free, which lasts for a full thirty days. This trial period is exactly what you need to figure out if Hosting Forest will be your company’s right partner.
A Focus on Earth
When you become a customer with Hosting Forest, you make a bold statement. They are committed to giving a percentage of each sale to organizations that care about global warming and climate change. You can get a badge that will display on your site and show shoppers that they are going with a company that cares about the future. In the future, this will become even more important as consumers consider which company to go with. It is not always who has the lowest price as we have seen with countries overseas that make goods cheap but care little for the burden placed on natural resources.
Planting New Trees
Hosting Forest has undertaken many initiatives designed to pull more carbon out of the air and recycle it. In 2012, the Worldview International Foundation worked with higher learning in Myanmar to transform their country. The giant project set out to build up a 1,800-acre mangrove park. With just this one green space, that will be 2.7 million tons of CO2 that won’t be contributing to climate change.
Not only does this slow global warming, but there are more far-reaching benefits as well. Countries in Southeast Asia are already well aware of the devastating impact climate change can have on their homeland. As the earth heats up, weather patterns start to change. What were mild storms before have turned into tsunamis that rip through their coastal cities and ruin lives? As the Earth keeps trying to bear the brunt of resources being used too quickly, these storms will worsen. Third world countries are the ones that are least equipped to deal with these disasters. When you support a company like Hosting Forest, you are benefiting many small villages and people grateful for the support as you slow down the ice caps’ melting.
Reducing Poverty
Reducing poverty is another way in which Hosting Forest is supporting the globe. When they give parts of their profits to initiatives to build up the mangroves in Myanmar, it is also creating jobs in these communities. People are hired to do good in the world as they plant more trees and create a buffer between looming and permanent temperature changes.
Not only do these projects create jobs, but you also can keep local farmers from going bankrupt. All it takes is just one extreme tropical storm to ruin a family that has been farming for generations. When they lose all of their equipment and possibly their home in a tragic flood, it can be impossible to rebound. Hosting Forest truly is doing a lot of good in the world by helping out with projects like these.
2. GreenGeeks
Need another company that offers green WordPress hosting to consider what really focuses on the world around us? GreenGeeks is a great company to consider with an excellent reputation. What are the highlights?
- Easily scale with their service
- Shared Hosting, Reseller, or VPS
- Data Centers in most major cities
- 30-day Guarantee
GreenGeeks has a ton of reasons why you can protect the environment and also save money at the same time. It comes with a chance to invest in Shared Hosting, Reselling, and even Virtual Private Systems. If your company starts to expand faster than expected, you are going to be able to tap into its huge number of resources and start to scale right away. There is no chance you have a lag in your service for customers because GreenGeeks can advise you on how to bump up your resources.
Try them for Free
Are you interested in testing the service for free? That is easy with GreenGeeks since they are a reputable company. Try them out for a full month, and get a total refund if you didn’t love the experience. This is one of the best deals you can get from a host for a customer concerned with price. You can make sure the uptime is actually 99.9% like reviewers have stated with the free month. You can also try out the data centers spread out to Toronto, Montreal, and Amsterdam. For users in the United States, tap into a data center that is in Chicago or based out of Arizona.
It is important always to test a service before you commit to a long contract with them. Many hosts will offer meager prices upfront, but it won’t be worth it if you are trapped in a contract for several years, and you are getting slow speeds. GreenGeeks will get you started at just $2.95 a month. An excellent introduction to the service and gives you a chance to test out all the features.
Focus on the Environment
What is the story behind GreenGeeks? Do they actually focus on the world that surrounds us as they imply? The answer is a resounding yes. When they first got started in 2008, they set out to be the leader in eco-friendly hosting. That is quite the goal.
GreenGeeks has succeeded in that lofty goal. They put back three times the power they consume, sending it back to the grid to be used by others. Nestled in the heart of Los Angeles, they have set a fine example for other companies that are just getting started.
Certified
You may not know this about GreenGeeks, but they are also certified. They work in conjunction with companies to buy wind energy credits. This goes even further than paying triple the amount for the electricity that they use for hosting. They also pay close attention to the type of hardware that they use. Many times, legacy hardware is not as efficient. More moving parts and parts that go out results in waste and energy loss. They make sure that all of the hardware that is used for hosting is going to be as efficient as possible. This helps them run a profitable business while also preserving natural resources.
GreenGeeks certified themselves with RECs. These are renewable energy credits that show they take conservation very seriously. RECs can be made by companies that specialize in making renewable energy. A web host shows that they are helping for the future when they can show they have earned their renewable energy credits.
Are the current companies you use able to show they have renewable energy credits? That is the proof a company is doing what they say they will do to help the environment. Trey Gardner is the CEO of GreenGeeks and he knows that the hosting industry needs to be accountable. Through the credits, it is to force other companies to acknowledge they need to go green. With enough pressure, more companies will start switching to green alternative to stack up energy credits.
Designed to be Green
When they first thought of how to make their hosting platform, GreenGeeks didn’t want any waste. One of the reasons why the hosting industry uses so many resources is the blatant waste of electricity. How many times have people made an inefficient website and transmits a ton of information to every visitor that is not needed?
GreenGeeks wanted their platform to be energy efficient. Using the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, they were able to put back three times the amount of power into the system in comparison to how much they were using to run a business. Can you imagine if people planted three trees for each one that was cut down? What would the world look like if companies gave back three times the amount of clean water when they polluted a lake or took advantage of a river? GreenGeeks is really setting a standard for how a company should look in 2021. Moving forward, the media is going to really reward companies like this, which will boost their revenue and end up putting even more energy back into the system.
Cheap Eco-friendly WordPress Hosting Services
Pricing always matters a lot; you have to pay it every year, so it’s often the biggest expense when running a website, especially a personal website. Most eco-friendly WordPress hosting services charge a huge fee, especially if you’re looking at Greengeeks, for example.
Most website owners aren’t sure if it’s worth it or not. If you only look at your economy, it doesn’t make sense to purchase green web hosting unless it gives you brand value. For example, if you’re selling something that fights climate change.
If you look at it in the bigger picture, then it’s worth it for sure; there’s gonna be many more generations after us, so we want to leave a better planet for our current and future children. You might want to consider using Hostingforest if price matters for you; they’re quite cheap compared to their competitors. If you’re only looking for cheap WordPress hosting, then a green host might not be for you.
WordPress Hosting With 100% Renewable Resources
There currently is no WordPress hosting service with 100% renewable resources, sadly. A few companies offer regular web hosting who have it, but if you’re running a startup or personal website, it’s going to be hard to justify; the monthly fees are enormous. They’re expensive because it’s expensive to run such a hosting service.
Most of them only take big clients, such as Amazon or Google. They’re not meant for small clients and won’t be allowing them soon. Offering hosting to smaller companies relies on lower prices, more customers, and low fees. Currently, there are not enough customers to justify doing that, sadly.
Of course, we hope that green WordPress hosting will become more mainstream in the coming years and more accessible together with a rise in popularity. It’s hard to tell when it’s gonna happen, though; it requires a fundamental change in how we invest our money.
How To Choose the Best Green WordPress Hosting service
Choosing the hosting service that fits your needs best can be difficult. There is no hosting service that’s best for everyone; it all depends on your website’s purpose. For example, if you’re running a small blog about your personal life, then Hosting Forest is great; if you run a bigger-scale company, then you might want to pick GreenGeeks because they offer better scaling opportunities.
If we were to pick a green host for SuperbThemes.com right now, then we’d choose Hosting Forest. Their prices are good; they offer 24/7 support and support many great green initiatives such as reforestation and much more. Our website doesn’t require that much to run though, all we have is a blog and eCommerce shop, which’s not too heavy.
Another way to do it is by donating some money every month to climate organizations and picking a normal host. But well, most of us tend to forget to donate once in a while and to be fair, it doesn’t do the same as running an eco-friendly website. The good thing about having a green website is the brand value; who doesn’t like supporting a company/blog that cares about the environment? We tend to have higher thoughts about brands that do exactly that.
Green WordPress Hosting
Green WordPress hosting has become a hot topic in 2021. We expect going forward; green WordPress hosting will just become more important as people start to realize the number of resources used up by large server farms. While it might not seem like it, the energy usage for all of the web pages that we access is comparable to what a small country would use.
For many, the electricity used to power these servers is coming from dirty sources. What can be done about this issue to encourage more green WordPress hosting? It does no good to utilize a service that strives to be better for the environment if the quality of service is not on par with what you can get with other hosting companies.
Fortunately, in 2021, green WordPress hosting is becoming more popular. Services like GreenGeeks make going green an easy decision. As you can see from the pricing, even though they have taken large steps toward helping the environment, the pricing is still in line with all of the large hosts such as Bluehost or HostGator. Now you can host your WordPress site with a great company while also supporting a business that cares.
Green WordPress Hosting In The Future
We expect that green WordPress hosting will continue to grow far into the future. People are becoming more eco-conscious. There are large initiatives taking place to move to solar-powered buses for travel inside large cities. Giant solar farms are being built that are taking the place of natural gas and coal. As the globe shifts over to more renewable resources, we will have a large number of companies that we can pick from in terms of green WordPress hosting. With so many choices, now you can pick a company that you feel most aligns with your values.
Take, for example, Hosting Forest. As the company’s name implies, they take a stance that emphasizes growing new trees to reduce carbon. Even though they have many initiatives worldwide to reduce their overall carbon footprint, you still get a great service. They feature the following:
- Close to 100% uptime
- Around the clock help from the support staff
- Easy CDN and also SSL
- Protected from hackers with the latest technology stacks
- One-click installers make installation easy
- Refunds for the first month
They have made it very easy to go green. As you can see, all of the features that you would associate with a top-tier WordPress host are there. Suppose you are new to using WordPress, no problem. The one-click installer makes it a simple process to get started. They have also created a simple process for both the CDN and your SSL. That means your content will be streaming out to customers quickly and also securely. Give them a try today with the 30-day guarantee.
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