The Node4 Green Initiative

Data centres tend not to be viewed favorably when it comes to their carbon footprints with the amount of power that is consumed at each facility, despite the benefits of multiple businesses sharing one purpose built facility.

So here at Node4 we believe it is our duty to do all we can in order to try and reverse the effect our business is having on the environment. Initiatives such as carbon offsetting along with the latest technologies to increase power efficiency will help to reduce our carbon footprint and act as our contribution towards the larger picture of protecting the environment. This will, in turn, help our customers become greener too.

Carbon Offsetting

As part of The Node4 Green Initiative, we have committed to plant 100 trees each year allowing us to offer carbon neutral hosting through Carbon Managers, a company dedicated to off-set the carbon emissions from businesses around the country.

Our commitment to the Trees 4 Business Campaign is published in a public register which can be viewed at: http://www.carbonmanagers.com/treeregister/.

The trees are planted in the Alladale reserve in the Highlands of Scotland, an estate which is being brought back to its former glory by its owner through the work of Carbon Managers.

A single tree can absorb a tonne of Co2 over its lifetime. Each tree helps to retain wooded areas to help reduce pollution, generate oxygen, maintain wildlife habitats and improve quality of life for everyone.

Data Centre Technology

Our green initiatives don’t just stop at planting trees; our third Data Centre in Leeds which opened in May 2009, utilises the latest power efficient technologies with an energy efficient UPS system and Airdale water cooled chillers providing the air conditioning.

Typically saving 35% of the energy used by a conventional air-cooled liquid chiller, these water cooled chillers use a free-cooling cycle to reduce the need for mechanical cooling, thus significantly reducing the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the air con units.

By delivering energy efficiency of up to 98%, the 80-NET UPS system helps us to reduce operating costs over the life of the UPS system. In addition, the unique UPS system topology proposed by Chloride’s system designers leads to significant energy savings, ensuring best value for Node4 customers.

As a company we will be using virtualisation technologies, which in conjunction with other initiatives will allow us to reduce our carbon footprint. Server utilisation rates in standard physical environments generally run at around 15 percent; but using virtualisation to run multiple virtual servers on each physical machine can drive utilisation up to 70 percent and above. We will be offering this technology to our customers so that we can increase server utilisation in the data centre as much as possible

Recycling

Due to the nature of our business we receive a large amount of packaging on products that are delivered each week. And so, we provide a cardboard recycling service not only for our customers at DC3 but for our use also.

Node4 Awarded e.on Levy Exempt

We at Node4 strive to reduce climate change.
We took an active decision as a business to purchase our electrcity generated from renewable sources.