How to choose a green ISP

green-hostingWe all know we can reduce our carbon footprint by recycling, eating locally produced food and supporting fair trade and organic.

But did you know there are green and energy saving options for your broadband service too?

I’ve been learning this from Rob Clymo; an expert in helping people make the right broadband choices. He’s here today to share his greener surfing tips!

Here are some questions to ask before choosing a broadband service so you can help make your life a little bit greener:

  • Does the broadband provider aim to be carbon neutral?
  • Do they have buildings that utilise solar energy or other renewable technologies?
  • Are they actively involved with charities focused on green issues?
  • Do they plant trees and carry out other green practices?

Energy efficiency at home:

  • Are you using the most energy efficient equipment?
  • Do you recycle old hardware that’s no longer needed?
  • Are you printing documents less to save paper and ink?
  • Do you have the best energy saving settings on your computer?

Environmentally friendly?

Spend time searching the internet for green ISPs and you’ll find many companies doing their bit for the environment. For example, Green ISP has planted thousands of trees to offset their carbon footprint.

Many green-focused ISP’s have spent time and money on building carbon neutral offices complete with solar powered energy.

Green internet providers

A few of the top green and environmentally-friendly providers are:

  • Green ISP
  • GreenNet
  • Phone Co-Op
  • Sky Digital
  • Eclipse Residential Broadband
  • Eclipse SDSL
  • Green Mobile

Green mobile

Offering broadband to mobile users is something that is becoming greener thanks to specialists that put their own environmentally-friendly stamp on proceedings. Green Mobile, for example, was the UKs first of its type and offers a truly green mobile broadband along with traditional landline based services.

The great thing about Green Mobile is their commitment to fund-raising for major environmental charities. In addition they actively raise awareness about green issues that might otherwise be overlooked by more traditional broadband companies.

Greener surfing

As well as choosing a green ISP, there’s simple things you can do at home to ensure your internet surfing has less impact on the environment such as choosing an eco-friendly email provider and search engine. The latter donate profits either to environmentally friendly charities or plant trees.

In the West we are conditioned to look at the price of everything and often get this mixed up with value. While some of the more ‘green’ service providers might not be the cheapest, the services are as good as many rival ISP’s. So vote with your money and say yes to the environment by connecting to a greener internet.

Author Bio: Rob Clymo writes about green broadband options on behalf of www.broadbandgenie.co.uk, the online price comparison website.

2 Comments

  1. Tracey on April 12, 2012 at 10:34 am

    You can also get green internet hosting for your website(s). I unfortunately only found out about these a month AFTER I purchased a 2-year contract with my current hosting site. 🙁

    There are ones which have apparently won awards: http://webhostinggeeks.com/greenwebhosting.html and a couple of others that I like the sound of: http://www.ecowebhosting.co.uk/ & http://www.ecologicalhosting.com/

    I will be writing to my current hosting site to ask them about their environmental policy and, if, by the end of the contract they aren’t as green as the others, I will be moving on.



  2. Mrs Green on April 22, 2012 at 8:43 pm

    @Tracey: OH what a shame about the timing on you discovering that information; still, passing it along to others helps us all live lighter. Thanks for sharing the links – that’s really helpful 🙂