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Greener Hosting
Maximizing efficiency for our clients, minimizing our impact on the environment. Platform.sh remains dedicated to decreasing the effects of our activity on the environment.
In 2022, we changed our bylaws to reflect our commitment not only to our bottom line, but to also consider our environmental and social impacts.
You don't need another server
As a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), we help our clients minimize the environmental impact of their applications by hosting them in the cloud. But there’s more to being green than simply providing standard cloud hosting.
We use another MODE to further reduce our impact.
Measure
Cloud hosting is considerably less resource intensive than on-premise servers, and therefore produces and emits less carbon into our environment.
Carbon auditing
We measure our carbon footprint through certified third-party audits. We have also signed the Climate Act, which stipulates that we will conduct carbon audits and reduce our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.
Optimize
A shared responsibility model, one between a provider and client, is common in cyber-security. The same is true in greener hosting. Both parties have a role to play. Platform.sh optimizes its product and encourages our clients to profile their code, to further contribute towards reducing our collective carbon emissions.
Reducing our footprint through high-density computing
Using right-sizing, Platform.sh provides highly dynamic container-based solutions. Compared to running directly on generic cloud virtual machines, we can achieve superior levels of density, while still guaranteeing resources for production and development environments. Through this optimized server density usage, we reduce our resource use to up to 12 times, as compared to an AWS EC2 virtual machine.
App optimization
Our clients can optimize their applications with our observability and monitoring tools, such as BlackFire. These tools allow them to measure loading times, identify bottlenecks, and receive recommendations on optimizing their work packages. This optimization results in better performance and lower emissions, as our clients can monitor the resources being used.
Deploy
Cloud hosting enables our clients to utilize servers located around the world. This means that we can choose to deploy to greener data centers (i.e., data centers that are located on a low-carbon electricity grid).
Location-based approach
As a multi-cloud provider, our customers are able to choose the provider that has the data center with lowest-carbon density. By changing the location for deployment from a high-carbon grid to a low-carbon grids, our clients can reduce their CO2 emission by up to 15x.
Carbon intensity transparency
We provide transparency concerning carbon intensity by using a location-based approach. Our Regions API displays the carbon intensity of the underlying electricity grid (gCO2eq/kWh) for the corresponding data center. This provides our clients with the ability to make the greenest choice possible when deploying a new project. Find out more about this API in this article.
Educate
The fourth and final component of our MODE strategy is education.
We say education with humility
The fourth and final component of our MODE strategy is education. We say education with humility. We believe that we need to start by educating ourselves through conducting research and sharing our results with the wider community and with our clients.
Some more ways we're helping
Our MODE strategy is leading the way in what we do to become greener. However, it’s not our only channel for change, find out some of the other ways we’re reducing our impact below.
Platformers work from home
Platform.sh have always had an almost fully remote workforce. Virtually all of our 360+ employees work from home which means there’s no need for a daily commute to the office. By skipping the daily commute, our staff significantly reduces their impact on air pollution, traffic congestion, and public transportation overcrowding.
Keeping things transparent
We don’t like to hide things around here. We share our sustainability and emissions reports openly with our investors and clients to ensure that they know exactly what we’re putting out into the world and where we are on our journey to become as green as we possibly can.
Let's talk about it!
We’ve been chatting about sustainability initiatives and greener solutions and you can check out some of our previous talks and conferences right here:
Reducing your cloud computing impact
TechCrunch TC Sessions with Fred Plais, June 2022.
CTO Forum: Reducing your Carbon Footprint in the Cloud
VivaTech with Leah Goldfarb, June 2022.
Grow your digital business responsibly and limit carbon emissions
DrupalCon Portland with Fabien Potencier and Ori Pekelman, May 2022.
Platform.sh & MS Azure: Reducing your cloud computing climate impact
June 2022
Additional reading
Can we create a green web?
May 12, 2022
Greener hosting starts with transparency
April 22, 2022
