The Future of the Internet is Positive and Green

‍“The internet is responsible for more carbon emissions than the aviation industry” 
- Mike Hazas, Professor at Lancaster University 

So where do these greenhouse gases come from? 

With over half of the world’s population using the internet, imagine the number of servers needed to store the data, and the energy required to run those servers. The greenhouse gases emitted by these huge servers and the millions of users accessing the internet every day are tremendous. 

The average website produces 60kg of carbon emissions per year … that’s equivalent to an average car driving 270 miles. As of 2024, there are around 1.1 billion websites on the World Wide Web with around 201 million active websites and nearly 2,52,000 websites are created daily. 

So, with all this, is there anything businesses can do to avoid greenwashing their customers? Are there any simple fixes they can do to help reduce their carbon footprint? Can web hosting ever be sustainable?

The simple and positive answer is Yes! 

Introducing The Positive Internet Company

Founded and established in London in 1998, The Positive Internet Company has a long history with a rich pedigree of designing and deploying bespoke solutions offering fast, secure, scalable hosting and Internet services. Their slogan is quite simply, "We're good"​.

And they are good. Not only are they carbon neutral, but one of the founders even published the very first book introducing the UK public to the Internet back in 1993, so they really are the Godfathers of the Internet. They are so trusted, in fact, that their very first client is still with them today. 

Now based in Positive Park — yes, that is its real name — The Positive Internet Company has a flagship data centre in Cambridgeshire that runs entirely on green electricity sourced from 100% renewable sources. They even have a barn owl living on their site, alongside handy in-house landscaping and lawnmowing services provided by the local rabbits. As part of their fully purposed wilding area, The Positive Internet Company has created an oasis for bees, butterflies, moths, birds, and other native ora and fauna that rely upon that ecosystem.

In addition to its green data centre operations, The Positive Internet Company is committed to ensuring maximum energy efficiency in software that uses their servers to reduce power consumption. The Positive Internet Company works closely with web agencies to ensure the websites they are building are as efficient as possible to ensure servers use as little energy as possible to deliver each page. Efficient sites are also faster for the end-user, making it a win-win for businesses.

Servers produce a large amount of heat, which is one of the most environmentally damaging parts of hosting. The Positive Internet Company deploys best-in-class ‘passive’ cooling systems, alongside energy-efficient server hardware, meaning that they have cut their overall power usage by up to 20% compared to a conventional hosting company.

We love working with The Positive Internet Company because they really care about the end customer. Customers (and agencies) have a direct route to an expert in The Positive Internet Company, so any issues can be resolved promptly without the usual friction of ticket-tennis. The data centre is also staffed by experts 24/7, so while we sleep we know the team there is ensuring all our customers’ servers are running smoothly.

At Wind & Kite, we are passionate about doing things better, from building websites that are accessible to all, basing ourselves in a B-corp office (with their own little London Bridge roof ecosystem home to bees, butterflies and birds) to caring deeply about our customer's success; that's why we couldn't be more pleased to have partnered with The Positive Internet Company to make the internet a greener place.

Read more about The Positive Internet Company on their website or speak to us at Wind & Kite about making a positive green change to your web hosting provider.  

If you would like to read more about the importance of web hosting, you can find out more in our article, What is Web Hosting, and Who Really Cares?