HostGator is green now?

J

JamesCWilson

New member
It seems that along with doing that whole rather questionable unlimited bandwidth/disk space deal, that HostGator has also apparently hopped on the "green host" bandwagon as well. What does everyone think about this, or HostGator in general for that matter?

There are worse hosts out there, but HostGator sure does some things I wonder about.
 
Hostgator is trying to make their image better. A lot of hosts claim to go green, but the majority don't. But, maybe hostgator is actually going green and telling the truth, who knows. I don't like hostgator anymore becuase of the unlimited thing they have going on. Unlimited just ruins everything. Becuase, saying unlimited is a lie.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Hostgator, and others, are doing a heck of a marketing job and at the same time, helping to better the environment. While SOME of the energy sources are through solar, from what I understand they're touting the GREEN status more on the "carbon credits" that are purchased.

Hostgator, from what I can tell, purchases "Renewable Energy Credits" - so while their facility is not GREEN itself, they pay a windfarm to generate electricity for them and pump that electricty into the electric grid that EVERYONE pulls from. When Hostgator then uses that exectricty, they receive it at a discount as they helped provide the power in the first place.

It's a little trickier than that, but that's the general idea. They are not a solar/wind company, but they pay someone who is, and then receives that power.

I like the concept, I think more facilities will follow this in the future, but for them, it's a heck of a marketing job and I applaud them for it. Sure they're jumping on the bandwaggon, but isn't everyone? Nobody is out there saying "destory the planet, buy our product" :)
 
I do not like the idea of carbon credits, or of somehow trying to offset the damage that you are doing. If you're going to go green then do it-don't just carry on being a polluting company but say it's ok! I planted a hundred trees! That just doesn't cut it for me.

So for me this is just another hostgator scam.
 
I'm not fond of the concept of carbon credits, either. It sounds like something that can be abused. Or, more to the point, it sounds like something that people should be doing anyway: produce as little waste as possible, be as non-destructive as possible.

Carbon credits also may not be 100% verifiable - and I don't think that there's currently a US governmental check on companies that sell these carbon credits to make sure that the money is spent for the intended purpose. How is a company to know that their purchased carbon credits did actually (for example) build a windfarm in India, or a hydroelectric dam somewhere in Asia? Even if a company says that carbon credits will be used to fund renewable energy in the company's home country...just where will the US find the land to build all the windfarms / plant all the forests from carbon credits bought by hosting companies, tech companies, and all the rest? And at what point will the building of a windfarm, the planting of a forest, the building of a hydroelectric dam, be done in such a way that either it doesn't effectively generate energy, and / or it somehow causes other damage?

On the surface, carbon credits sound like a good idea. However, both chocolate and beer are good ideas, too (well...perhaps not together). Too much of either of them, though, and you won't be very happy or healthy.

Anyone know of the Dust Bowl in 1930s middle America? It happened because thousands of families rushed to the middle American plains to farm and homestead - but neither the Us nor Canadian gov't. (who provided all the land grants and encouraged people to go settle the largely-uninhabited areas) nor the new residents had a sound grasp of safe/intellingent agricultural practices. All the prairie grass was ripped up, the land was plowed and prepped for "traditional" farming...and an entire ecosystem was shredded and thousands of hopeful families lost nearly everything they had. I envision similar problems all around the globe, as a result of "carbon credits" projects implemented too quickly, in the wrong places, or in the wrong ways.

I think that many companies will buy carbon credits (some to whitewash their public image, some because they want to be as environmentally proactive as possible), and either the money will be misspent, or other damage will be done.
 
I firmly believe that Carbon Credits, although a step in the right direction, are being used by Host Gator as nothing else besides pure marketing.
 
The whole "Carbon Credits" thing is just a big scam along with gobal warming. As far as HostGator going green, I think there's some kind of certification so customers know if a web hosting company is truly "green". I think they are just jumping on the bandwagon as they did with the unlimited thing.
 
The profiting on the warming is a scam.

Heck, Al Gore is a chairman and one of the main stock holders of one of the carbon credit companies. Then he releases his global warming movie to push the carbon credits. His house uses more power in a 1 month period than a regular house uses in a year. However, he touts he's "carbon newtral" since he pays carbon credits - but since he's paying it to a company that he's heavily invested in, he's basically buying stock ;)

Do a search on Al Gore and carbon credits in google. You'll be amazed at what you find.
 
AbbieRose said:
I do not like the idea of carbon credits, or of somehow trying to offset the damage that you are doing. If you're going to go green then do it-don't just carry on being a polluting company but say it's ok! I planted a hundred trees! That just doesn't cut it for me.

So for me this is just another hostgator scam.
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My thoughts exactly, and there is no such thing as being "kinda green" when you either are or are not, and Host Gator is not. That would be like buying a product at the grocery store that encourages you to recycle, and the packaging wasn't even recycled by the people who made it.
 
Truth be told though, Hostgator doesn't buy carboncredits, they pay to put wind generated energy into the grid: http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml

Not the same as actually using non poluting energy source, but still better than nothing.

As for "green" hosting, there can't be any. Them servers and data centers etc. would have to be made out of cultivated plants for hosting to leave no footprint on the environment. :)
 
I fully think that most people who say they are green are just saying that. Thinking about it in my mind it just seems like its the hardest thing to do. There is one thing about having a green home, but another to have a green hosting company, I just can not see it fully happening.
 
Being 'green' is just one of the newest trends that various hosts have started using, hoping that it will help to generate them some extra press time. Many of them don't even try to do anything green, they just try to claim that they do.
 
HostGator is green now?
It seems that along with doing that whole rather questionable unlimited bandwidth/disk space deal, that HostGator has also apparently hopped on the "green host" bandwagon as well. What does everyone think about this, or HostGator in general for that matter?

There are worse hosts out there, but HostGator sure does some things I wonder about.
Click to expand...

Hostgator is really working their way in my good books - Not only are they trying to save the environment but the also donated huge sums of money to a cancer association if I recall correctly. They are getting their name out there and I applaud them for that. There may be some bad words about them but it's expected given their size. If they say their green then I take their word for it.

Just my thoughts
 
Yes, but being green is more than just donating energy credits or whatever. What being green means is that you are taking the environment into concern with every way that you do business,and go about your lives. Host Gator cannot claim to be entirely green, although them doing SOMETHING is still better than nothing.
 
Hosts - or just about any midsize or larger company - who announce, "We're green!! We're green!!" put me in mind of a slovenly guy in a dirty tank top who tells all and sundry that he's stopped beating his wife every day.

They're using a word in such a fashion that it has no meaning; but they're counting on people reacting to the word instead of asking what they're *not* saying.
 
engineerroy2008 said:
I still dont know why they are using this as selling point in my view a host can be green but in what way it benefit the users?
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Because right now, people are panicking. The economic meltdown, the climate changes...people haven't been paying attention to how their own behavior may contribute to these problems - or haven't been making plans in the event of a bad patch of either the economy or weather - and so within the past three years, corporate responsibility in either of these areas suddenly became a big plus. Never mind if a person or company has been fiscally responsible for the past ten years, or never mind that a person or company has been economically responsible for that same amount of time. Now, the herd mentality says, "There's a business who says that they're acting responsibly, so we'll do business with them because then we're responsible by association/we're doing our part to encourage responsible behavior." Buying "green" gives people a visible, quickly identifiable way to control some things in their life. Individual people can't control the overall economy or the overall climate, but they can control how they act or react toward either of those issues. HostGator has had negative press in the past; they're hoping that their latest splashy actions, if publicised correctly, will negate their historical service problems. And they're probably right. People will latch on to the keyword "green", ignore past behavior (or won't even know about it until they experience several outages themselves), and HG will get a big batch of shiny new clients and a new-bought respectability.

Conspicuous consumption was in, and now is most definitively out; conspicuous responsibility is currently the vogue.
 
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