Minds + Machines Goes Green
Recently, Dot Eco released a comprehensive Green Paper (PDF here) detailing its principles and its mission. (Hint: Al Gore, the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Sierra Club and Surfrider think it can help save the planet.)
As the registry provider for .ECO, I decided that we need to support that mission. As I’ve already reported, Minds + Machines DNS services are carbon-neutral and do not contribute to global warming.
Now we’ve undertaken a major initiative within Minds + Machines to make sure we contribute less to global warming, and that to the extent we do, we do something else to offset it. Our goal is to ensure that none of our operations contribute to the destruction of the planet.
Here’s what we’re doing and plan to do:
- As we add or replace servers, replacing them with energy-efficient “green” machines
- Encouraging telecommuting and online communication in our company, and when we must travel, whether long-distance or for commuting, purchasing carbon offsets for each employee.
- At our offices, taking steps to reduce our energy consumption and emissions by upgrading insulation, air-conditioning systems, and (of course) our habits.
- For all of our business, purchasing carbon offsets for our activities that emit greenhouse gasses.
- Doing all of the above for our sister company CoCCA.
- Providing credits to registries and registrars using our systems for specific steps they take to make their operations greener.
The Internet is global, and it’s our view that Internet companies should do what they can to make sure their operations have minimal impact on the planet — because “global” doesn’t make much sense if there isn’t a habitable globe.
Some resources for green operations:
- Green IT: Framework for Building a “Hyper-Green” Virtual Server System
- Interview with Matthew Wheeland, author of the new book The Greening of IT: How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment
- Tapping into the Value of Being Virtually Green
- Purchase carbon offsets at Terra Pass
- Purchase carbon offsets at the Carbon Fund
We challenge every top-level domain registry provider to take responsibility, make a difference, and — especially for those registry operators backing ecologically-themed top-level domains — to put their money on the line.
Antony
Ok, so what type of server qualifies as being “green”?
Why are you focussing solely on carbon?
What do you mean by “credits” for registries and registrars?
Michele
Funny how the environment brings out the cheat-detector in us all. Interleaved between the various words of congratulations sent to me for undertaking this initiative are the sort of narrowed-eyelid skeptic interrogations that Michele sends in his comment above. I’ll try to answer.
1. Green servers are those that use less energy. See http://bit.ly/bqVh for a review of several that are sold by Dell, HP, etc.
2. We are purchasing carbon offsets because the projects that reduce carbon emissions, or counterbalance them, are a real boon to the environment. It’s a complicated area, as I’m sure you know. To give you a taste, see http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf (PDF). If you can reduce this to a few simple rules, I’d be very grateful.
3. “Credits” means monetary inducements so you registrar types will have more than consciences to spur you to clean up your act. This means rebates or some other form of credit on domains that you purchase where Minds + Machines is the registry operator.
Now, please ask other registry operators what they’re doing…
Antony
Antony
I think that:
1 – you’ve completely misunderstood my queries
2 – you’re being overly defensive
I know what carbon credits are, but that misses the entire point.
Usage of sustainable resources etc., is much more beneficial than carbon credits. Carbon credits just means that you can buy your way out of your “sins”. If you were adapting a more holistic view towards the environment I’d respect it, but the emphasis on “carbon” and “carbon credits” strikes me as a PR play.
As for the query about credits to registrars – again, your reply is defensive and quite offensive.
In the first place you are inferring that registrars have no respect for the environment and secondly you seem to be positioning yourself as “holier than thou”.
Maybe you’ll prove me wrong, but I think I’ve every right to be sceptical if a couple of innocent queries generates this kind of response
Michele
Michele – I was just trying to have you on a bit. My apologies. I’ll try to respond earnestly.
What I wrote in the post was that where we couldn’t actually reduce our emissions/pollution (for instance, less travel, less commuting, taking steps to seal up our building, etc., we would purchase carbon credits. Yes, that’s buying our way out of our sins, since in our world we end up “sinning” environmentally just by existing. It’s how we deal with the leftover pollution after we reduce what we can. So that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s not as if I know everything about this either: I’ve done some research, identified our most egregious failings, and talked to some experts about what we can do. We’ve already made some mistakes: since this post came out, for instance, I’ve been told that the Carbon Fund might not be the best place to purchase carbon credits, because some of their projects aren’t as useful as those undertaken by other providers. So this is a work in progress, as I think it must be for everyone.
With regard to registries and registrars, my apologies for any offense. I am sure there are some who take their responsibilities seriously. I am equally sure that there are others who don’t even think they have any responsibilities. So we thought that if we rewarded those who did take steps to do their part, it would at least raise awareness with the others.
Please let me know if I missed anything, or if there’s something else you’d like to know, I’d be happy to answer.
Antony
Antony
That’s fair enough – the unfortunate downside to the written word is that I can’t see the impish grin
There’s been quite a bit of criticism of carbon credits, but while I think they may have some foundation I also think that they are a move in the right direction.
Personally I’d be happier planting trees, but I haven’t had much luck finding reliable companies in Ireland that do this (the last one we used seems to have vanished!).
In the current business climate most of us are focussing on reducing costs where possible. With that in mind, opting for the lower power servers can save money, as power is one of our biggest costs. We’ve also been buying “fair trade” or “green forest alliance” for the office coffee
.
What’s rather annoying, however, is that things like office supplies actually cost more if you choose to go down the “green” route.
Michele
“Planting trees” may use up some CO2 but it doesn’t help the ecology by planting trees outside of their ecosystems and acknowledging the time it takes from seed through succession to climax ecosystem. How did I get in on this? I am a paleoecologist and have been studying this kind of thing for several decades.
I am pitching in since I have a personal interest, please note that I am not writing as an official anything.
A global tax on carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gas) emissions would almost certainly be the best way to combat climate change. Since this won’t be in place in the foreseeable future I think self imposed taxes like carbon credits are an excellent way to put a cost on emissions. Now of course this will mean that rich people can buy themselves off but so will any system unless one wants to introduce some sort of rationing cards and this has proven to be very inefficient in the past.
[...] and Machines have, in turn, also made a public commitment to “going green” and will also be incentivising their registrar partners to adopt “green” [...]
We’ve recently launched a dedicated server offering in which the servers use just 40W of electricity.
Like you, we believe it is best to reduce the consumption, not just offset whatever you use, no matter what.
Rex Wickham