Do you have your own website? Are you looking to reduce your digital carbon footprint?
Join the club!
Whether you’re a full-time business owner, starting a blog on the side or you already want to move to a more sustainable provider, you’ll want to know all about the best green web hosting providers out there.
The good news is that an environmentally friendly host is still fast, reliable and secure.
In April 2022, I went through the process of migrating this website across to a green hosting provider based in the UK. And I’m very glad I made the change!
I did a lot of research before I eventually switched to Eco Web Hosting. This was a great choice for me and they have been a superb host since.
If you’re looking to do the same or assessing your options, let’s take a look at eco hosting, what exactly it is and the best green hosting choices out there.
- What does a hosting provider do?
- The environmental issue with web hosting
- What is green web hosting?
- What does eco friendly web hosting look like?
- Key points for a more environmentally friendly green host provider:
- 7 Best Environmentally Friendly Web Hosting UK
- Non UK green hosting
- Wrap up on environmentally friendly hosting
What does a hosting provider do?
All websites need a good hosting provider. It’s the host that stores your content and website files, then serves it up on computer and phone screens whenever someone lands on your site. Whether this is done fast or slow is usually down to the hosting.
Hosting providers store all this data on servers, which exist in data centres. It’s possible to have many hundreds and thousands of servers in a single data centre.
The environmental issue with web hosting
In a world of screens, the cloud and never to be seen data servers, you could be forgiven for thinking there’s no carbon footprint or environmental impact associated with the internet and owning a website. But there is.
The main environmental issue to do with hosting a website comes in the form of energy use. This is similar to issue behind cryptocurrencies – you can read about in more detail in this blog on how environmentally friendly cryptocurrencies are.
Running data centres requires a lot of energy. In fact, if Google were a country it would be in the top 90 in terms of electricity usage.
It’s also said that around 10% of the world’s electricity consumption now happens on the internet. Some people think this is terrible but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing.
We live in an ever changing world, which is becoming more digital. This means we require more electricity. Compare it to the alternative of using fossil fuels to power human lives and it’s not that bad.
What is green web hosting?
So, websites and the internet in general requires quite a lot of electrical energy.
The good news is that electricity can be generated in green, renewable ways.
And this is what green hosting is all about.
Although there isn’t a physical presence to your digital-based website, there needs to be a physical presence to where all the site data and files are stored.
When you choose a green web host, you’re opting for a company who run or use servers and data centres in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
In short, a green web host will help limit and reduce your carbon footprint.
What does eco friendly web hosting look like?
Eco friendly hosting should be as good as any other hosting.
Getting the basics right, good hosting will be:
- Fast
- Reliable
- Secure
These are non-negotiables.
Just because it’s better for the environment, it doesn’t mean that green hosting should be slow or unreliable. If they were they wouldn’t be a sustainable choice as people would get fed up and leave.
Eco web hosting should be much better than traditional hosting in how it’s powered and operated.
For example, all data centres with lots of servers get very warm. This means they need some form of cooling system to keep everything functioning correctly. A data centre used by a green hosting company will do this in a cleaner, more eco friendly manner.
Key points for a more environmentally friendly green host provider:
Here are 5 points that should define a good green web host:
+ Powered by renewable energy
Data centres can be partly or fully powered by renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydroelectric and even geothermal depending on the country they’re located in.
Most centres are powered from national grids, which provide readily available energy at a given time.
However, green providers will buy Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin certificates (called a REGO) per unit of energy used to certify they have put renewable energy back into the grid.
+ Energy efficient servers
This is all to do with Power Usage Efficiency, or PUE for short. This is the measure of how efficient a data centre uses energy.
The PUE is given as a ratio of the total energy needed to energy going to computing (as opposed to cooling, lighting and other overheads). The ideal PUE rating is 1.0, which would mean 100% of the energy goes to computing.
The best ‘hyperscale’ data centres, i.e. the big ones, have a PUE of about 1.2. Google has ratio of 1.12.
Big tech companies will use a lot of energy and electricity, but the silver lining I guess is that they will be doing their very best to be as energy efficient as possible. When it comes to electricity, the more efficient you are, the more money you save, which is what matters to the big corporates.
+ Low impact cooling systems
Related to energy efficiency mentioned above is the cooling system. All data centres will need some form of system to keep things at a cool, steady temperature. This may be via air conditioning, the use of refrigerants or local environment.
A green web host will choose the more eco friendly option. Depending on where the centres are situated in the world, it’s possible to use outside air for cooling, which is one of the best approaches. This can happen in colder places, for example in Sweden, Canada and the UK.
+ Offsetting emissions
Many green host providers now offer an offsetting angle with their packages. For example, Eco Web Hosting plants 10 trees a month on my behalf for the package I am on. I also offset my own footprint through my Ecologi membership – read my Ecologi review here.
As you’re likely to know, offsetting is good, but it’s not the full answer for being sustainable and eco friendly. Offsetting should always be used alongside other methods that reduce emissions and impact at source.
+ Green business practices
Taking a wider approach, green hosting companies should care about the bigger picture.
How do they operate as a whole business? Do their offices use renewable energy? Do they publish an environmental report?
7 Best Environmentally Friendly Web Hosting UK
Hopefully you’re a little more informed about green website hosting and what it takes for providers to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Now let’s take a look at the 7 best eco web hosting companies in the UK that you can use for your website.
These sustainable web hosts listed below tick the green and ethical boxes for you to host your website with a clear conscience. They’re not listed in a particular order.
1. Eco Web Hosting
Eco Web Hosting is the company I switched my hosting across to. At the time of writing over 6 months later, they’ve been fantastic and I’d highly recommend them.
Entirely based in the UK, Eco Web Hosting have been established for 15 years. They have a team full of hosting veterans who know the industry and what it takes to provide fast, secure hosting.
Their data centres use suppliers that provide energy purely from solar and wind power. They also have a very low power usage efficiency of 1.12.
Eco Web Hosting have teamed up with a number of environmentally friendly partners that are familiar to Tiny Eco Home Life, including Eden Reforestation and Ecologi.
| Key Green Features | Trees planted with every package PUE rating of 1.12 Support Gold Standard carbon offset projects |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.9 / 5 (570 reviews) |
| Prices | From £3.49 a month for basic Up to £23.99 a month for business virtual private servers |
Head over to the Eco Web Hosting website*
2. Kualo
Based in London, Kualo have 20 years in the hosting game – practically an eternity. During this time, they’ve hosted 100,000 websites in 90 different countries.
They are 100% green powered with renewable energy and have data centre and server architecture that use energy efficient principles to keep energy usage down. They also have a tree planting and carbon offsetting partnership with Ecologi.
As well as 99.9% website uptime, they kindly host charity websites for free!
| Key Green Features | 100% Renewable Energy Powered Tree planting and carbon offsetting Energy efficient data centres |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.9 / 5 (1,037 reviews) |
| Prices | From £4.99 for one site £14.99 a month for unlimited sites |
Head over to the Kualo website*
3. 34SP
With an office and data centre in Manchester, 34SP is a local business for me. They have a fully UK based team where they train and hiring local people.
I’ve used 34SP before having used them in a professional capacity for my day job.
34SP have two decades in the hosting game and their northern data centre and office uses 100% renewable energy for its power. They also work with Tech Recycle to recycle their electronic waste.
As part of their offsetting approach, 34SP work with the Woodland Trust carbon project. Here, they are committed to planting 7,500 square metres of new woodland in the UK every year. This is said to remove 300 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – brilliant for reducing emissions and also for wildlife! You can read more about the UK woodland scene here.
| Key Green Features | Work with the Woodland Trust carbon project to offset emissions Partnered with Tech Recycle to recycle e-waste Powered by renewable energy (office and data centre) |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.9 / 5 (421 reviews) |
| Prices | From £9.95 a month for one site Three sites up to £19.95 a month |
Head over to the 34SP website
4. Green Hosting
Set up in 2004, Green Hosting offer to host websites powered by 100% wind energy. Yes, wind and nothing else!
They have a data centre in London, where their servers, routers and cooling systems are all powered by this renewable energy source purchased from UK wind farms. The result is eco-hosted websites with 99% uptime.
Green Hosting are partnered with Renewable World and donate a percentage of sales to this charity.
| Key Green Features | Powered by 100% wind energy Partnered with Renewable World charity Use all UK infrastructure |
| Free Migration Service? | Not stated |
| Trustpilot Rating | n/a |
| Prices | From £5 a month |
Head over to the Green Hosting website
5. Eco Hosting
Founded in 1999, Eco Hosting were one of the first green hosts in the UK. At their recent data centre in Yorkshire, Eco Hosting are implementing cold aisle containment and free cooling chillers (from the outside air) to make it one of the most energy efficient data centres in Europe.
They’ve contributed towards reforestation projects in Devon, Somerset, South Wales and Scotland. Up at the Alladale project in Scotland they’re also a support of the Challenger Trust which gets young, inner city children out into the countryside to take part in nature studies, outdoor activities and tree planting.
| Key Green Features | 100% UK based Contribute towards UK reforestation Energy efficient data centres |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.9 / 5 (231 reviews) |
| Prices | Starter package from £2.50 a month. Multiple domains from £4.99 a month |
Head over to the Eco Hosting website
6. 20i
Founded by experienced hosting brothers Jonathan and Tim Brearley, 20i came to fruition in 2016. Located in Nottinghamshire, the 20i office is self-powered by 2,088 solar panels. Other green practices here include the use of LED lighting and the recycling of all waste.
20i offer a green hosting platform that is centred around autoscaling technology. When a website is busy, resources can be allocated from their entire hosting platform. Conversely, when a website is quiet, it will take up fewer resources.
Their data centres in the UK and US have a PUE of 1.12 and are powered by 100% renewable energy.
| Key Green Features | Offices powered by solar energy Efficient use of autoscaling technology Data centres powered by 100% renewable energy |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.9 / 5 (1,409 reviews) |
| Prices | WordPress hosting from £5.99 a month Up to £34.99 for unlimited websites |
Head over to the 20i website*
7. Green House Web Hosting
Green House Web Hosting are a fully UK based business, which has spaned out of BR Web Design in Nottinghamshire.
Green House use energy efficient practices and offer automatic scaling, so you don’t have to worry about your server going down and it’ll use less resources when not busy.
They plant trees with each hosting package, for example their wordpress package will see 4 trees planted a month. They’re keeping the tree planting local too and have been planting trees at Ransom Wood business park in Nottinghamshire. They also get involved with other Gold Standard carbon certified projects to lower their environmental impact.
| Key Green Features | UK tree planting with hosting packages Autoscaling technology Green business practices |
| Free Migration Service? | Yes |
| Trustpilot Rating | Excellent – 4.4 / 5 (10 reviews) |
| Prices | From £1.99 a month to £9.99 for Eco WordPress hosting £14.99 for VPS hosting |
Head over to the Green House website
Non UK green hosting
Of course, the internet spans the globe. If you live in the UK, you don’t necessarily have to use a UK hosting provider. In theory, your site can be hosted anywhere in the world. I prefer to keep things local where possible, which is why I switched to a green provider in the UK.
The best environmentally friendly host I can find outside of the UK is Green Geeks. They are one of the industry leaders in green hosting.
Green Geeks host over half a million websites with data centres in Chicago, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal and Amsterdam. However, I believe these data centres are not run with renewable energy, instead using fossil fuel power generation. Maybe because of this Green Geeks put three units of renewable energy back into the grid for every unit used.
Wrap up on environmentally friendly hosting
You’re not short of very good, eco friendly, green website hosting companies that are based in the UK. Many of these companies will host websites across the world and vice versa.
These green hosts make sure they implement strategies and practices to reduce their carbon footprint, which mainly comes by way of energy usage. As well as improving efficiency and sourcing renewable energy power methods, a green sustainable host will also offset carbon emissions with tree planting and carbon reduction projects.
I hope this post has helped you to go green with your website! If it has, sign up for my newsletter below.
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I’m the Creator and Editor of Tiny Eco Home Life. I write and publish information about living a more sustainable, environmentally friendly life. Away from the laptop, I love spending time in nature and with my young family (plus Murphy the dog!). I write and send out the Eco Life Newsletter.
