Making use of online resources have their good and not so good- but soon to be good points.
About your website.
The server environment entails temperature control, backup energy sources in water and electricity, natural disaster resistant infrastructure, and security measures- and all of this runs 24/7/365. The different types of green hosting that counter these drawbacks include: Energy efficient hardware, offsetting carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits, and powering facilities with renewable energy methods.
Apart from the energy your website is directly using every time called upon by a visitor is the energy your visitor uses. A visitor to a site using Flash will consume more energy- flash banner ads that scroll while you are viewing a website is an energy suck. Read more about how your visitors consume energy by viewing your website and others here.
About selling your goods online.
The Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon this past December performed a study to compare the use of energy and carbon dioxide emissions used in traditional and ecommerce retail portals. They found using buy.com as a case study that ecommerce was in fact more earth friendly. In more speific findings, e-commerce actually had an approximate 30% lower use of energy and carbon dioxide emissions. Find out more by reading the report.
About telecommuting and networking online.
Cloud computing is working with applications, or save materials online and not from your desktop. Cloud computing makes your business accessible from anywhere: work from home, on the road, and in your office. It’s the idea of getting a 2 for 1 deal in that one machine takes on the tasks of 2 others, using less energy and other natural resources- not to mention company money. This limits the need for lap tops, and other pieces of hardware, To read more about how cloud computing could aid in saving the planet and also more about it’s drawbacks go to ScienceDaily.
Keeping an open connection with servers sucks up energy such as using Twitter, Facebook, newsfeeds, and anything that the interaction with the website is prolonged vs. a static page that the server sends the information and that is it. Something y
ou can do- sign out when you are not using the Social Media site. Many advances in technologies are being made to calm the increased energy usage from servers meeting the needs of web 2.0. Read more about these new technologies at earth2tech.
About Earth Day
The US Government website explains that Earth Day is “a time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress… a time to unite around new actions… a time to act to protect our planet.” What actions is your small business taking to protect the environment today- what big plans do you have for the future? We hope you take some time today to explore the ways in which you are providing added value to your clientele in saving our natural resources.
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