Green Hosting

Late last year, I was looking around for a host for my football website. I had a site about Ottawa's Canadian Football League team through Geocities, but grew disatisfied with it. I wasn't paying a whole lot but for what I was paying I found the site-building tool frustrating and that took the fun out of it.

I did an extensive search for a host that would meet my needs and wants, while catering to my technical stupidity. I don't actually know a whole lot about conputers; anything I'm able to do is by trial and error. So I need the whole process kept fairly simple.

I eventually came across Host Papa.


Their product seemed to be simple, inexpensive and home grown. I gave them a try, and was very pleased.

But the inevitable happened. You know how when a CD comes out that you really want you'll see it for a good price in a store, buy it, then the next store you're in has it for $2 less? Similar deal here.

About a month after I started recreating my website, one of the newsletters I subscribe to made me aware of hostitgreen.com. You can see for yourself the service they provide.

1. Complete List of ALL Green Web Hosting Companies.
Visit them all to see which one is the best for you, or use
our unique solution. (We don't make a cent either way.)

2. Your Free "Keeping Your Site Green" Resource List.
Contains the best services for green web sites from
development to marketing and much, much more!

I had never even thought of including that in my search! Some THIT I am!

But Host Papa has recently taken care of my oversight! They now boast 100% Green Energy Web Hosting.

How do we do it?
We certainly do not have a wind turbine on the roof of our data center! Sure, it would be a neat thing to have, but that is not the case. After an energy audit by an outside provider to calculate our total electrical energy consumption from traditional sources, Hostpapa purchased "green energy tags", or certificates from a certified green energy supplier. That supplier calculates the total energy consumption of our operation and uses their suppliers of Green energy to pumps in 100% equivalent energy back into the power grid. This effectively cuts down on the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) producing energy that we normally would have required from non-green energy sources.

Good on them. I know that not everyone is a believer in Green Tags but even they were to turn out to be a complete scam, I applaud the effort.

Last point: If you're looking for a website host yourself, would consider having hostitgreen e-mail you their details, but are concerned about spam, don't be. In the 18 months or so that I've been doing this little THIT thing, I've subscribed to all kinds of newsletter and signed all kinds of petitions (my inbox has about 190 unread e-mails right now). I have yet to receive one peice of spam in that time, from hoistitgreen or anyone else.