Sustainable hosting? Sounds like a buzzword at first – but for us at Raidboxes, it’s part of everyday life and not just a green label that’s easy to market. I spoke to Julian, our sustainability expert at Raidboxes, about the measures and technologies we use to realise climate-conscious hosting as a company.
Sustainable hosting – just a buzzword?
Julian, what role does sustainability play at Raidboxes?
Julian: Quite a big one. Sustainability at Raidboxes is not a “nice to have”, but firmly anchored in our corporate strategy. Since 2022, it has even been official – with a passage in our articles of association that commits us to social and environmental responsibility. For us, this means that we think about tomorrow while we act today – and endeavour to make our impact on the environment and society as positive as possible.
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And what sets us apart from other providers in this respect?
Julian: Many people talk about sustainability – we live it. And not just on the website or in marketing, but in concrete terms: with measures that have an impact. This means that sustainability at Raidboxes is not a marketing tool, but is deeply rooted in our DNA. Our Economy for the Common Good and B Corp certifications confirm this. What’s more, we often implement more than we actually communicate. We’re not about greenwashing, but about real impact.
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Measures for climate-friendly hosting
What exactly do we do to enable sustainable hosting?
Julian: Quite a lot! Our servers run on 100% green electricity – and not just any green electricity, but from a provider that demonstrably supports the expansion of renewable energies. In addition, we plant a tree for every website hosted through us and remove five plastic bottles from the ocean. Our office footprint is also offset by investing in biochar projects and CO₂ compensation through EU certificates. Sustainability at Raidboxes does not end with the server infrastructure.
Keyword infrastructure: Which data centres and servers do we use?
Julian: Our new server structure runs in Equinix data centres. These meet high environmental standards and are certified in accordance with ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact. When it comes to hardware, we look for the best balance between CPU performance, costs and energy efficiency. This enables us to achieve both top technical and sustainable performance.
Do we only use green electricity?
Julian: Yes, but not just any old one. Our claim goes further: our supplier must demonstrably invest in the expansion of renewable energies. We have the relevant certificates submitted to us every year to ensure that our electricity procurement creates real added value for the energy transition.
How do we manage to optimise server capacity utilisation?
Julian: Our magic word: container technology. This means that every website gets exactly the resources it needs – without overheads. As a result, we avoid unnecessary reserves and optimise the use of the entire server capacity. This saves a massive amount of energy. We also have a central RAID system that minimises local storage usage. Compared to our old system, which only utilised an average of 10% of server capacity, we now achieve at least 50%. It’s like a car that’s not parked in the garage, but actually drives.
And on the software side – are there any sustainable approaches?
Julian: Sure, our engineering team is constantly optimising the architecture and processes. The aim is to use intelligent job systems and clever code optimisations to reduce the load on CPU and RAM as much as possible without sacrificing performance. Less resource consumption = more sustainability. And by the way, it also makes hosting faster and cheaper. This is not only sustainable, but also economical.
And how sustainable is our working model?
Julian: We are a remote-first company – this not only saves time, but also emissions, as there is no need to commute. Paper is almost history for us, because we work almost completely digitally. We use our hardware for as long as possible. Repairing instead of throwing away is standard practice for us. We also try to minimise our ecological footprint in our day-to-day work.
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Climate-neutral, climate-positive or climate-friendly?
Are we already climate neutral?
Julian: Not in the strict sense. We still emit CO₂ and we don’t bind it all directly. But we do everything we can to reduce emissions. And what cannot (yet) be avoided, we offset through various projects: Planting trees, retrieving plastic waste from the sea, investing in biochar and cancelling emission certificates. We are not perfect – but we are on the right track.
How do we offset unavoidable emissions?
Julian: About the programmes already mentioned: Planting trees, removing plastic from the ocean, investing in biochar and cancelling EU allowances. These measures are part of our overarching strategy to offset our emissions as much as possible.
Our green future
What future plans are there in the area of sustainability?
Julian: We are currently in the middle of our B Corp recertification – and many new ideas are emerging in the process. Based on the results of our 2024 carbon footprint, we are optimising our targeted measures to further reduce our emissions in 2025. And we are developing a new tool for our customers that will be integrated into the dashboard in the future. This will allow you to check your website for sustainability – and optimise it directly. We are excited and our customers can look forward to it.
Thank you very much for the interview, Julian!
Julian: I’d love to – and thank you for your interest in sustainable hosting!
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