Resources to create a “Green, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly” Website
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Green, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly
That’s a movement we’re all starting to hear about more and more. Corporations, Individuals, and customers are starting to pay attention to the demand that thinking long term is important to the world, and to business.
At some point, if you work at a technology company, or any other industry, some individual or group within your organization is going to push the green movement, a mandate will come from upper management and every group will have to figure out a way to be ‘green’.
I think I’m ahead of the trend here, and want to provide the definitive resource for the Web Strategist (those that are responsible for the long term direction of a website) with some resources on creating a green website.
Be prepared for the “Green Web Police”
Remember how “Web Accessibility” became important? I’m sure at one point, some green group will create a “green certificate” showing that your website is eco-friendly, and you’ll place that badge on your website for a few thousand dollars. Some users will boycott websites that are not green compliant.
I’m inspired by my colleague Ryan (Great videos if you’re interested in sustainability) who focuses on green, I’m a web guy through and through, so here’s some resources.
Update: Techcrunch has a very interesting story comparing Yahoo and Google, who’s more green.
Resources to make your website Green, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly:
Web Hosting:
There are web hosts that are powered by solar panel, wind, or some type of combination of traditional and natural power. I’m not going to list out every web host who is green (there will be thousands soon) but I’ll point to definitive indexes that list them out.Find a Green Host: List of Green Web Hosts
More Wind and Solar-Powered Web Hosting Plethora of Options for Green Web Hosting Sustainable Solar & Wind Web Hosting Hitachi: Five Steps to a Green Data Center (PDF) Green Energy
Your computers, servers, and data centers will need to consider green power.Energy Star Program How to green your electricity: More tips to improve consumer and corporate energy EPA’s Green Power Partnership Servers, Storage, and Networking in the “Green” news
I’ve noticed an increase in hardware manufactures starting to build marketing campaigns and initiatives around sustainability and going green.IBM, Dell Servers Go Green HP details plans for data center cooling Sun goes Green Storage Goes Green IBM Allots $1B to Push Green Computer and Server Recycling:
Computers only have a limited shelf life, so what happens to those out of date pieces of hardware after your sys admin throws them in the dumpster? I recently recycled some old PCs and learned that computers will head to 3rd world countries and really damage the environment and people.Computer Recycling & Reuse: Various resources Ten Tips for Donating a Computer How to: Recycle Your Computer
Other ways to have a Green and Sustainable Website
You know that one web developer you worked with, and you wondered if he ever took a shower? Well he was just being eco-friendly. Well aside from making your developers work in the dark and forcing your UI designers to sell their cars, there are others ways to green your workHow to Green Your Work Telecommute, reducing emissions and byproducts from commuting Print Friendly Website: I’ve experienced so many print un-friendly websites that end up using 3-4 pages of paper for one screen. Create green software
Leave a comment below if you’ve other resources to make a website Green, Sustainable, or Eco-Friendly. By the way, this website is hosted by DreamHost, which has recently gone green.
20 Comments so far
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Excellent summary Jeremiah, good looking out!
Thanks Eric, glad to help.
[…] http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/05/12/resources-to-create-a-green-website/ That’s a movement we’re all starting to hear about more and more. Corporations, Individuals, and customers are starting to pay attention to the demand that thinking long term is important to the world, and to business. […]
Hi,
I just wanted to let you know that we from Greenpeace energy (based in Hamburg/Germany) already have a project running certifying nuclearfree/co2-neutral websites. It is called “Atomstromfreies Internet” (nuclear free internet), linking our partner ISPs that host websites and house servers with our renewable energy. Unfortunately our web pages are only available in German.
For more information feel free to gather more information on www.ecologee.net, a friend project that has a more global attempt towards this whole green internet/green computing idea.
Internet powered by renewables: www.af-i.de
This new phase of eco businesses is an opening for scammers. Teach people to be more eco-friendly, rather then allowing them to continue their current lifestyle and make offset payments.
[…] I’ve started a list of ways to make your website green: Web Hosting, Servers, Green Energy, Networking, Power Usage, Computer and Server recycling, and of course, making your webpages print friendly. If you’ve any suggestions, please go to that post and leave a comment. […]
Thank you all for these contributions in the comments, keep ‘em comin’.
The interest in green web hosting has definitely been on the rise lately. I still have doubts about it’s efficacy though.
Yes, I want to create a whole green grid, not as a tunnel as you could guess. I mean a physically, entirely by renewables driven web. We need clusters of green data centers, at least one ISP in each city, where black wires going through.
By the time enough entrepreneurs stepped on the other side of careful applied energy resources, we can start over to convince carriers, phone companies to connect to each other.
Obviously we would still interconnected the dirty energy network with that powered by regenerative ones.
Then people may still choose to which side they and their businesses think to belong and fit most to.
I have no doubt that it will happen soon. The blueprint is clearly visible, we not far off this goal.
Make it now, free IT. Be ahead with us.
Stephan Schildberg
What about having your web site powered by solar….AISO.Net (http://www.aiso.net) is 100% solar powered, both their servers and data center are powered by onsite solar panels. And they also have a partnership with Co-Op America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Green Building Council. Plus, they are doing more then just making sure their electricity is green. Their data center and office is green too by using environmentally friendly air conditioners, solar tubes to bring in natural light, a propane powered generator instead of diesel, VMWare virtualization to reduce their server electricity usage, 6 watt energy saving desktop computers for their employees, and soon to be LEED certified as a green data center, the only public one in North America, at least that I have found so far.
Tim
Thanks SO much for leaving that link, it makes a lot of sense, and you’ve really got your green strategy all worked out.
[…] Though the jury may still be out on open source and energy efficiency, at least there are certain things (thanks Jeremiah!) that can be done to reduce your website’s grid dependence. […]
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[…] There’s a lot of hype around the technology industry getting green, in fact I even put together a list of resources that can make your website green. […]
This is really useful, thanks. I’m working on a green web site now (www.dothegreenthing.com) so this is a great resource for us.
Interesting Links…
Links to interesting sites and content Loads of links, groups, etc. from Compass Fwd compassnetwork summary of leads online games etc on eco SD social topics.txt. Yahoo Green…
Thanks for the alternatives. We have a number of clients who understand the benifits of going green. United Copper Industries makes copper wire for the building industry. They have recently introduces the first lead free building wire manufactured in the US. We encourage all of our clients to use renewable resource and recycled paper. The green web idea is great and will be the main topic of our next staff meeting. The Dark Horse site will soon be green. (darkhorseproductions.com)Thanks again. Jg
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LOVE the site (: