There's multiple factors that might make one hosting company more green, eco-friendly, or otherwise sustainable than another. I'm going to list some factors in case this is important to someone.
This first factor is very customer-specific. Less power is used when you use servers that are closer to you, especially for anything that's network-heavy. While physical proximity doesn't guarantee perfect routing, in general, the closer you are, the better. I think this matters more for hosting a local specific server, like one for communications for a company that consists of local employees. Or a business website accessed by local customers. For national or global interests, it's less relevant as traffic can and will come from wherever.
But, in many cases it's better to be close to the server. Connectivity tends to be more reliable (fewer hops to fail,) faster, and with less risk of congestion.
I would say that Spokane, Washington is a great fit for anyone in the Pacific Northwest. Obviously, the closer the better -- if you live in Bend, Oregon, a datacenter in Bend is going to be your best bet. But if you're in Spokane or the surrounding area, Slow Servers, or another host in the area, will be tough to beat. Now sometimes there are exceptions to this -- sometimes ISPs have terrible routes and Seattle might actually be a hair faster. But in general, closer is better as a rule of thumb.
Virtualization itself is a "green" feature. If compared to a dedicated server, if you're able to accept the limitations of VPSs, a VPS will use considerably less power.
Now if you just need "web" hosting, a shared hosting environment can be made much more robust and use much less energy per website than even a VPS. This is why, on the alternatives page, I recommend checking out Neocities -- it may be a better option depending on what you're wanting to do. And possibly for free!
Slow Servers is definitely not zero waste, but it is a high priority. Whenever possible, I buy used equipment. This includes all of the motherboards, memory, and CPUs. I have bought some new screws. The chassis are used. I've bought ethernet cables and power cords from thirft stores. I've also bought a fair bit from Ebay. I've tried to source materials from tech thrift stores in the Spokane area, but the selection just isn't enough to hit the power figures that I am trying for. It's also hard to have a completely heterogenous fleet of servers, with one different than the last. This would be hard to test and validate, and hard to trust. It could be more "green," in some ways, but isn't something I've attempted.
With equipment that has no hope of being used again, or is defective, I scrap the components, or set them aside for future scrapping. There are some scrap yards in the region that I've used. For more specific components like PCBs, I am setting them aside for Boardsort.
Waste, itself, is a huge issue in my mind. We're throwing things out at an incredible rate. This is largely because make things that can't be fully recycled, and because tastes are constantly changing. It doesn't really matter if you're out in the woods and build a cabin and wittle some spoons. But when you're making plastics and circuit boards that never break down, you're making something that will ultimately end up in a landfill. This should be done sparingly, if at all.
While I am not against capitalism (I am running a business, after all!) I am anti-corporate. A corporation, by definition, has one essential product. Its share. Corporations are legally compelled to maximize quarterly shareholder profits, and that's it. Sometimes what maximizes the value of the shares is a good thing, or is in part a good thing. But often, it is short-sighted.
I do not invest in stocks or mutual funds. Slow Servers is 100% self-funded with no debt. The datacenter is locally owned and operated, not part of a large corporation looking for endless expansion.
I believe that growth for the sake of growth, and progress for the sake of progress, is often undesirable. Corporations, Venture Capital firms, and mutual funds tend to push things "forward" -- rather blindly. While many will disagree with me, I can't think that everything is "better" today than it was 10 years ago. Many things are, yes. But much is worse, on the whole.
If you host with Slow Servers (and other small hosts) you are not sending your money to places where it will try to perpetuate an endless growth cycle. I'm going for (eventually) profitable, small scale, and focused.
This deserves, and basically has, a page to itself. AI is energy hungry, land hungry, extremely corporate, and ultimately reduces human autonomy and happiness (on the whole.) I do not use AI in developing/maintaining Slow Servers.
Some may argue about open models, and at least some of the ethical concerns are mitigated. However, I still feel that many of the same issues apply.
If I had rented datacenter space from a large company, it's likely they would continue to invest in future AI-capable datacenters. Not so with this one. This is a small scale, 100+ year old brick building.
The Neutron datacenter in Spokane is fed by Avista. The power blend certainly isn't ideal. For 2024, the amount used was 34% hydroelectric, 8% wind, 5% biomass, 1% "other," 40% natural gas, and 12% coal. I assume it's about the same in 2026. I won't say that hydroelectric is flawless, but it might be the least bad option in the region. I'm no fan of wind.
I recently started learning about climate change and fossil fuel consumption driving atmospheric CO2 levels. While I am no expert, and I am hoping I am wrong, it does seem to be a real problem. And it seems that less CO2 emitted ("unbalanced," anyway, like fossil fuels) is better. Some hosting providers use only renewable sources. I don't have the option of choosing the power source in this case.
Hosts are tailored to be energy efficient. This is from two directions. The first is deliberately using lower performance servers that need less power to begin with. It's certainly a compromise -- customers may have to adjust accordingly with more efficient software or lower demands. In practice, I find that many do just fine with slower hosts. There are many computing needs (or perhaps, wants) that run very well on my hardware. Now to be fair, there are cases where more performant servers are necessary. And there's a lot of hosts that can fill those roles. Most hosts care a lot about offering "fast" servers. And some do offer more performance per watt. It all depends on what you're looking for.
The second direction is making energy efficient design choices. Some are compromises. Like not having RAID 1 -- which does not guarantee data integrity anyway. This saves a drive per host, which lowers power consumption. Another is using more efficient power supplies. Or choosing fan designs that cool more efficiently.
I have spent a fair bit of time testing and researching to improve efficiency. I still have a long ways to go. There's a couple of major design changes that could improve efficiency over what it is already, which I'll explore when it makes sense to do so.
Regardless, the energy used is quite low. Though utilizes hosts are more efficient in terms of watts per VPS -- so with more customers, things will improve further.
You might look at this website and think that it's very spartan. It is! It's designed first as a Gemini Capsule. A very lightweight and simple protocol.
Most web hosts have third party Javascript, tracking functionality, cookies galore, large pictures, and many have videos. Even many "green" hosts do that!
Now perhaps it's just me being lazy, but I know that a lightweight website will use less power (from server, to network equipment, to end device) than a heavy-weight website. I could plaster the website with large, high-resolution pictures of crystal clear rivers, green hill sides in spring, and beautiful mountain tops. But, you're here for hosting, not beauty.
Expanding upon the last point, there's no Facebook tracking pixels, Google Adwords, or anything else here. If you want to be tracked even less, while using a bit more power, you can use the Tor Hidden Service.
If you want to hide from Google, Facebook, and other megacorporations, this site isn't making anything worse for you.
I am generally against banking. When I have to use a "bank" I try to use a credit union. I am definitely against credit/debit cards. Very megacorporate-esque. Lots of money in fees.
I haven't offered a payment option by credit card because one of my personal goals is to use not use the banking system at all. I try to pay cash whenever possible.
I am against baseless, fiat currency. I accept both cryptocurrencies and silver in the mail as payment.
Unfortunately, the datacenter is far from me. A bit under a two-hour drive. This is not so eco-friendly if I need to drive to take care of something. This might happen once a month, maybe more, maybe less. If I don't have other errands, or at least that require much space, I drive a drinking-age-legal gas-powered sedan to get there. On the plus side, it's a very used vehicle already, and more efficient than many vehicles in the area. On the downside, it has an exhaust leak and it's still a long way to go.
I wasn't able to procure a datacenter option close to me. Maybe some day?
I use OpenBSD, which is generally speaking, less efficient than Linux as far as power consumption goes. It's less able to take advantage of lower C-states and the like.
However, OpenBSD is much less corporate than Linux. I believe that it's development, in some ways, is more sensible and sustainable. It grows less for the sake of growth itself.
Using it is somewhat arbitrary. I could potentially have more efficient hosts running Linux. But I like OpenBSD, so it stays.
Cryptocurrencies are far from eco-friendly. There is a lot of waste from proof-of-work mining. Sadly, it's a hard problem to solve. If there were no bad actors, mining could be quite minimal. And if it replaces central banks perhaps it offsets some of the incredible energy use.
I'm not 100% sure about what the lesser of evils is, in this case. Though fiat currency, debt, lending, and usury probably don't result in very "green" behavior in the long run.
This whole business endeavor, despite whatever lengths I go to to make it more "green," will never be directly beneficial for the planet. I'm sure it's "less bad" than other options. I don't think that on the whole, the Internet has been good for the environment or even human happiness. Now some elements of the Internet have been great, or at least seemed great to me, and I'm attempting to help provide a means of preserving those with as little damage as possible.
Reading a book at the library, gardening, and walking or riding a bike are much better activities than reading this page on your laptop or scrolling through it on your phone.