Green Internet

I have covered this issue briefly before, but it's been playing on my mind of late after coming across a variety of articles showing that it's becoming a topic starting to spark some debate. What am I talking about? The carbon footprint of the internet!

Surfing the internet, you generally forget that behind the site you are browsing are a variety of power consumers. These power consumers include your computer, your router, your ISP's computers and routers, the website host's computers and routers and all the intermediary computers that route you between them; and if you came through a search engine, then that has to be factored in to the equation too.

I think we would all generally agree that the Internet is a good thing, so how can we be more environmentally friendly in our web browsing? It's a tough one, but here's a few ideas. Firstly, researchers are working on power saving routing algorithms, (those algorithms that connect you to where you want to be) based on demand, time of the day and climate vs available renewable energy resources. It's an interesting concept, but as this Treehugger article points out, it could result in most data centres being powered by coal. I guess it very much depends on the client. Changing the nature of the backbone of the internet is out of reach for most, so more immediately, what can you do to green up your website and internet experience? Planet Green recently published 6 fairly simple and cost effective tips on how to 'green' your website. Some are fairly obvious, some aren't.

Finally (for this article anyway) we have Greenscroll, a kind of carbon offset service for websites They claim to (for admin costs only meaning not for profit) invest a monthly amount of money from you into green power energy projects. This is an interesting concept. I would be intrigued to know if anyone has had experience in using it.