If you are looking into eco-friendly and green web hosting for your new website, here’s Keetsa Blog’s recommendations and reviews of Top 7 prominent green hosting companies:

(The above chart lists green hosting companies in the order of price per month.)

How are these companies green?

GoodAdvocado is a small hosting company that is 100% carbon neutral and also plants 1 tree for every new account.  GoodAdvocado would be good choice for a small business owner who need good customer service since most small hosting companies have faster customer-service in general.  I do really like the fact that they plant 1 tree for every new website created, it would be even better if they could put up some pictures of that.

At $4.99, this is probably the cheapest green hosting you are going to get.

HostPapa is another good choice for green hosting.  They use 100% green energy sources, here’s an except of how they do it:

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 pump in 100% equivalent energy back into the power grid. This effectively cuts down on the carbon dioxide-producing (CO2) energy that we normally would have required from non-green energy sources.

EthicalHost donates 10% of our pre-tax profits to social and environmental organizations.  They also use 100% wind power through energy companies Vision Quest and the Pembina Institute.

ThinkHost is another company that use power of the wind and sun to power their servers. Here’s some things they do beyond their own business:

Social responsibility extends beyond ThinkHost’s business into the day-to-day lives of our staff. Our team members are involved in human rights/refugee advocacy, peace initiatives, drug and alcohol counseling, environmental rehabilitation and sponsorship of families in third world countries. We are activists supporting and applauding other activists—we understand the world you’re in, because we’re in it too.

Probably most of you have heard of DreamHost as they are a pretty big hosting company well known in the hosting industry.  Dreamhost is an employee-run hosting company and they even claim to use recyclable coffee cups, which is a good thing.

Here’s an excerpt of how they are green:

Putting a price on carbon output is just one way to help make the world a better place. It’s a first step towards true energy sustainability. Organizations large and small are constantly working on reducing their environmental emissions. When they do so a neutral third party then steps in to verify the reduction and issues what are known as “Renewable Energy Credits”.

We’ve purchased enough of these credits – which are retired after purchase and not resellable – to account for our energy usage. The proceeds of these credit purchases are then put toward funding further emission reduction and renewable energy projects.

SolarEnergyHost uses 100% carbon-free solar power for all their servers.  I do like the fact that this company uses 100% solar power, power of the sun under one roof.

Here’s an excerpt of how they do it:

At Solar Energy Host your website is hosted using solar energy- the energy powering your site comes directly from the sun! This is better than “Carbon Neutral” because it does not involve the purchasing of Carbon Credits. By hosting your website with Solar Energy Host, you are making a real difference in reducing climate change.

Should you go with green hosting?

Oh definitely, if you are running/starting a small business, you will need to setup some kind of website.  These hosts are more eco-friendly and green than most regular hosting companies and I don’t see why not you shouldn’t support these green businesses.

Well, that’s the Top 7 eco-friendly and green hosting companies we’ve reviewed.  I know there’s tons more out there but we only listed the most reasonably priced and “green” companies here so if you find better ones, please feel free to leave a comment.