TMCnet News
Rackspace Unveils GreenSpace Initiative to Promote Environmental ResponsibilitySAN ANTONIO --(Business Wire)-- Rackspace(R) Managed Hosting today announced a new initiative to promote environmental responsibility across the company. Dubbed internally as "GreenSpace," the company-wide program will promote energy conservation, carbon offsets and employee education to reduce Rackspace's contribution to climate change. As part of the company's GreenSpace campaign, Rackspace recently entered into a relationship with NativeEnergy, a leading national marketer of renewable energy credits and carbon offsets, to offer carbon-neutral web hosting to all new customers. Rackspace will work with NativeEnergy to invest in renewable energy projects to offset carbon emissions produced by customer servers managed within Rackspace's data centers. Rackspace's investments will support the Owl Feather War Bonnet Wind Farm project to bring wind turbine power to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, and also helps support the Schrack Family Dairy Farm Methane Project in Pennsylvania. Currently, Rackspace adds more than 400 new servers a month to its US-based data centers, and Rackspace will offset the carbon emissions for each new customer server brought online. "People everywhere can make positive changes for the environment, and working together with the right corporations and partners can truly drive collective power for change," said Tom Boucher, president and CEO, NativeEnergy. "We applaud Rackspace for taking steps in the right direction and tackling environmental responsibility at the customer level as well as the corporate level. This sends a powerful message about change that we hope will be emulated by others in the IT community." In October 2006, Rackspace's United Kingdom-based office launched a similar program with the International Tree Foundation, Britain's longest-standing tree planting charity. The quantity of carbon emitted through customer servers hosted with Rackspace is calculated and then trees are planted to offset this amount. Rackspace has planted more than 1,100 trees to date through the program. Energy conservation throughout Rackspace's eight data centers worldwide is a key focus of Rackspace's GreenSpace initiative. Rackspace designs all of its data centers with power conservation in mind and recently unveiled a new UK data center that will operate on renewable energy. Historically, Rackspace has always leveraged energy efficient hardware and equipment in the data center, for example, announcing to customers in 2005 the adoption of Dual-Core AMD Opteron Series processors, which consume less electricity than prior processor models. Additionally, Rackspace recently introduced the latest generations of both Intel and AMD low voltage processors. These low voltage processors allow customers to generate power savings when right-sizing their configuration. "Enterprise computing is a major contributor to global energy consumption and carbon emissions; therefore, we believe it is Rackspace's responsibility as a web hosting provider to tackle environmental responsibility on our end," said John Engates, chief technology officer, Rackspace Managed Hosting. "Working with NativeEnergy to offset our carbon emissions is a major step for us, but we believe offsetting alone is not the answer. Conservation and changing behavior is of equal importance, so we are working on multiple projects in the data centers to conserve energy, and we are also working internally to educate our employees on changing to an eco-friendly lifestyle." Additionally, a major component of the company's GreenSpace strategy is to provide Rackspace employees and their families with information on environmental conservation and education programs throughout San Antonio. Rackspace hosted its first "Green Day" event on Thursday, June 7, inviting more than fifteen different vendors and non-profit organizations to present employees with environmentally-friendly tips and product alternatives. Rackspace employees enjoyed test drives of Lexus hybrid vehicles and Segway scooters, learned of local recycling options for electronics and other materials, and participated in hands-on demonstrations on mulching and composting outdoor remains. For video of Rackspace's first annual Green Day, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM7_PBxQ3tk. In April 2007, Rackspace announced the company's membership to The Green Grid, a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. For more information on the GreenSpace initiative, please visit http://www.rackspace.com/information/events/green.php. About NativeEnergy Native American majority-owned, NativeEnergy is a national marketer of carbon offsets and renewable energy credits (RECs), offering individuals and organizations a means to compensate for their global warming pollution, or to effectively power their homes and businesses with renewable energy. NativeEnergy's unique business process brings upfront payment to renewable projects for their estimated future REC or offset output, enabling its customers to help directly finance the construction of new wind farms and other renewable energy projects, such as Native American and Native Alaskan wind farms, and wind turbines and methane digesters on family dairy farms. These projects reduce our reliance on fossil fuels to meet the nation's electricity needs, and reduce emissions on the farms. NativeEnergy also offers Green-e certified RECs from operating wind farms and third party-verified offsets from operating CO2 mitigation projects. Online at: www.nativeenergy.com. About Rackspace Managed Hosting A recognized leader in the global managed hosting market, Rackspace Managed Hosting delivers enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes. Serving more than 10,000 customers in eight data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry's best technologies for each customer need and delivers it as a service via the company's award-winning Fanatical Support(TM). Through trusted relationships, Rackspace serves as an extension of its customers' IT departments, enabling them to focus on their core business. Since its inception in 1998, Rackspace has grown more than 50 percent a year. For more information, please visit www.rackspace.com, or call 800-961-2888. |
