Data centres that require energy to run servers and provide cooling account for almost a quarter of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from information and communications technology (ICT), according to Gartner.

Not enough attention has been paid to reducing the data centre’s carbon emissions and it's the fastest growing area within the IT industry. With more and more websites going live every day, the rise in hosting needs is ever increasing. Organisations should aim to keep their data centre CO2 emissions constant but this is easier said than done. This all illustrates the need for green hosting, carbon free and carbon neutral services to help reduce your carbon emissions.

Data centres account for such a large portion of ICT CO2 emissions for a number of reasons. There is a lack of floor-space, a failure to house high-density servers and increased power consumption and heat generation. In addition, the cooling systems are adding to the problem.

Most organisations have grown their infrastructure (servers, storage and networks) considerably during the past three years. While the volume growth of these machines is set to rise annually for the next five years, a general lack of new data centre builds during the past nine years means that quality data-centre floor space is limited. The importance of more green data centres and green hosting is more and more crucial.