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Carbon Neutral/Energy Positive
The creation and maintenance of your website runs on electricity which, as we all know, has environmental consequences. As conservationists, we're all concerned about pollution, energy security and climate change. So Puffinworks has taken steps to ensure that our business — and thereby your website — is as environmentally friendly as possible—all at no extra charge to you.
The most important things we do:
- save energy whenever possible
- offset our carbon emissions and support renewable power
- support worldwide conservation efforts
Saving energy
Saving energy is an obvious first step. Our office resides in an energy-efficient passive solar building. We buy only "Energy Star" computers, monitors and printers; we configure our computers to save energy by turning off idle monitors and hard disks when not in use; we use fluorescent light bulbs and auto-adjusting thermostats; we recycle used equipment whenever possible... you know the drill. We take it seriously.
Offsetting carbon emissions and supporting renewable power
No matter how much we save, all Web hosting companies still use energy. In particular, powering and cooling our dedicated servers requires most of the electricity we use. Each year Puffinworks computers and servers consume approximately 900kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity—that's a release of slightly less than a single ton of carbon into the atmosphere.
That may seem miniscule compared to billions of tons of carbon released worldwide each year, but instead of ignoring it, we've decided to do something about it. Each year, we contribute to the Carbonfund.org renewable energy program to offset more than 2 tons of carbon dioxide. That's equivalent to over 2,000 kWh of renewable electricity, more than double our usage.
Carbonfund.org uses the money to fund zero-emission wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass renewable energy programs, either through direct investments or renewable energy certificates. These contributions make Puffinworks carbon neutral, meaning that we offset (reduce) more CO2 than we produce. It's not a perfect solution, but doing nothing is unacceptable. At least this humble effort pumps more renewable power into the electric "grid" than we use.
Supporting worldwide conservation causes
Finally, each year we provide several thousand dollars worth of pro bono work for conservation nonprofits, along with an annual contribution of $1000 to The Nature Conservancy, furthering its good work toward conservation easements that foster habitat and open space preservation worldwide.
The result is that your website is energy positive in more ways than one—all at no extra charge to you.