With Earth Day upon us, like many businesses we’ve been reflecting on our duty to minimise our impact on the environment.

Website hosting and data centres

The world has become increasingly reliant on the internet for information, online shopping, streaming services, cloud-based software and more. This is powered by a huge network of data centres, which house web servers and the internet infrastructure, and it’s estimated these centres account for approximately 1.5% of the world’s electric usage.

Primary Image hosts websites in the Centro Data Centre in Hemel Hempstead, which was one of the very first data centres in the UK to use 100% renewable energy. It’s recognised as one of the best performing energy-efficient data centres in the country, with a power usage effectiveness rating of 1.2.

Our partner – UK Dedicated – has had a commitment to green hosting throughout the past decade. In fact, our hosting is recognised by The Green Web Foundation for its green credentials.

And our web servers use the industry-leading LiteSpeed performance engine, which not only makes our customers’ websites load faster, but also makes the servers run more efficiently too.

Our Primary Image office

Even the smallest of green initiatives add up and we know we can do our bit to help the environment.

Most of our work and administration is done electronically, so our paper waste is minimal. And we have access to recycling facilities at our base at the Business Hub in Southend-on-Sea.

We minimise electric use in our office environment, such as through motion-controlled lighting, and timers switch off equipment overnight (rather than being left on standby). We also make a conscious effort to ensure that the equipment we use (e.g. desktops, laptops, monitors, internet equipment, etc) is energy-efficient and, when no longer needed, it is always donated or recycled responsibly.

Whilst we know these are only small steps, we will continue to minimise our environmental impact as much as possible. And we hope others will be inspired by Earth Day and think about what other positive green changes can be made.