Sustainable Hosting

Our Story

Who we are:

Sustainable Hosting, LLC was founded in 2006 by friends and experts in technology, business and sustainability. Carbon neutral from the start, we are dedicated, as a company and as individuals, to blending world-class technology with social and environmental responsibility. Our presence is international, with representatives on both coasts of the United States as well as in Europe and customers from all corners of the Earth. The office where more than two-thirds of hosting operations have taken place is run directly on energy from certified renewable sources since late 2007 and we offset 100% of the energy used for all our hosted sites and all other business activities (ie: travel) with Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and we are a GreenAmerica approved green business. Our business decisions, including banking, vendor selection and office management, are values based. Our customers include non-profits with discounted or donated hosting, startups and $100mm brands, and we offer a broad range of plans, from entry-level shared hosting up through dedicated enterprise class custom configurations. We have a small dedicated staff committed to giving you the most personalized service possible.

We are an organization with a strong foundation based in the sustainability minded green economy, and based on the knowledge that, while we each make our own stride toward a sustainable existence, together we are greater than the sum of our parts.

…a long & storied timeline…

Originally unrelated, there was nominal hosting provided by “nettrip communications”, a group of geeks with a server, basically trading bits of web hosting on it in exchange coffees and beers. There once was a company called Earthsite, built by pioneering sustainable business entrepreneur Joey Shepp. who built a green hosting company as a finishing project for his Green MBA studies. However, there were no techs in service to keep it going. Meanwhile and separately, a long-standing friendship between River, Allen and Bennett (along with a tiredness around being told what can’t be done online) had a high-bandwidth hosting server with no business plan. On the playa of Burning Man in 2003, these worlds collided and the discussion that would create a new entity began.

With the other three in the other important positions (CEO, CFO, Director of Marketing), Allen became the Director of Technology, stationed in affordable partially so that he could live on a very tight budget. in 2006. For a few years, there was a steady client family of between 100 and 200 members, and things went well!

The global financial crisis eventually hit everyone hard. Allen was left to manage things, as clients left for cheaper arrangements elsewhere, and the reality of the cost of living in the USA hit the other partners so hard that they had to bow out.

Allen was bringing the company back from the financial cliff when he was attacked one night in Belgium, in a hate crime situation, by five local guys. By early 2017, it was clear that the damage was heavy as neurology appointments stacked up. In fall, the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis was confirmed, followed by a break-up and a difficult relocation of home and office. Homeless for a few days right when the “heartbleed” bug endangered our servers, Sustainable Hosting lost more clients to organizations with greater stability at the time. Luckily, the company survived this period, with the help of income brought by consultation.

The pandemic period was leveraged to provide time and resources to build the company back under a single executive. Plans were made that have taken four years to carry out, so that we would be prepared to accept new sign-ups once again. Included in this was the purchase of solar panels — an excessive amount, as even the contractors admitted – which is the reason we can now declare this organization carbon-negative.

What is Sustainable Hosting?

The environmental and social impacts of the information technology industry are far-reaching and profound. Until we have 100% recyclable and compostable computers, truly sustainable web hosting will not be possible. At Sustainable Hosting, we are striving toward an ideal that has yet to be realized. This ideal will only be realized when the global community insists on doing things better, and ardently supports new and continuing improvements with their political and monetary votes.

Your support helps us to support values-based vendors and renewable energy providers. Every purchase we make is done with careful consideration of the environmental and social ramifications of that purchase. We use energy efficient servers, in our green offices as well as the datacenters we serve from. Our offices are paperless, and our energy is renewable. When the recyclable/compostable computer comes available, you can bet we’ll be first in line.

In the past, Sustainable Hosting purchased up to 40,000 kilowatt-hours worth of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates annually to offset the energy used by the network of servers and supporting infrastructure, as well as all company travel. Over the course of one year, these certificates prevented the emission of 51,000 pounds of CO2. This is equivalent to the carbon sequestration power of 20 acres of trees. Now, we exclusively use servers powered directly by renewable energy, and our offices use 100% renewable energy.

Thank you for the honor and the privilege of taking steps on your behalf toward the ideal that is Sustainable Hosting and technology in general.