The internet's energy problem
Most people don't think about where their website lives. It's just... online. But every webpage is served from a physical server, in a physical building, drawing real electricity — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The internet now consumes more electricity than the entire UK — over 400 terawatt-hours every year. And that figure is growing as more businesses move online.
Your website is part of that. The hosting you choose determines whether your slice of the internet runs on renewable energy or fossil fuels.
What makes hosting 'green'?
Not all green hosting claims are equal. There are a few things worth understanding:
Renewable energy means the data centres powering your hosting run on wind, solar, or other renewable sources. This is the most meaningful measure.
Carbon offsetting is when a host buys carbon credits to compensate for their emissions. It's better than nothing, but it doesn't reduce emissions — it just pays someone else to reduce theirs.
PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) measures how efficiently a data centre uses energy. A score of 1.0 would be perfect. The industry average is around 1.5. Hosti's data centres have a PUE of just 1.12 — meaning almost all the energy drawn goes directly to powering your website, not to wasted heat.
Why it matters for your business
Sustainability is increasingly important to customers. If your business cares about its environmental impact, your hosting should reflect that.
It's also becoming a practical consideration for businesses pursuing B Corp certification, ESG reporting, or ISO 14001 — all of which look at a company's full carbon footprint, including digital infrastructure.
What Hosti does differently
Every Hosti plan runs on 100% wind and solar energy, in Tier 3 UK data centres with a PUE of 1.12. We don't offset — we don't need to. The energy is renewable at source.
Our autoscaling platform also means we only use the resources your site actually needs. When traffic is quiet, energy usage drops. It's efficiency built into the infrastructure.