For the past six months, we’ve been reaching out to some large hosting providers in order to find an internal person who can own their listing in our Green Web Dataset. This post is a final update on that work, and also details what happens now for those providers who do not have owners, and their downstream customers.
Earlier this year, we made a call to our community to request help in finding owners for a handful of large hosting providers who were listed in our dataset as a verified hosting provider, but did not have an internal representative we could liaise with for updates about their green claims. We refer to this information updating process as “reverification” and we do this once a year for each provider listed in our dataset to ensure our data is up to date. The providers we needed help with were Microsoft, Google, Equinix, Amazon (AWS) and Meta/Facebook.
That external plea for help came after several months of our own efforts trying to find contacts at these organisations through private channels.
We set an explicit date of March 15 2025 as the deadline for finding these owners, which represented about six months of us actively addressing this. March 15th has now come and gone and it’s time to draw this activity to a close.
The wins
With a lot of support from our community, who provided lots of proactive nudges to contacts and colleagues, we now have owners for:
- Microsoft
- Equinix
Thank you to all the folks who helped bring this to the attention of people inside those organisations, it made all the difference!
The losses
Unfortunately, despite the efforts of many, we still do not have owners for:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Meta/Facebook
As outlined in our previous post, without a contact from within organizations we can liaise to keep their green claims information accurate and up to date, we cannot list them in our dataset. We have no choice but to archive these providers from our dataset and no longer represent them as verified green hosting providers.
A note: We have been in contact with some individuals in leading sustainability roles at AWS, and really hope this leads to a positive outcome. More below.
What does it mean when a provider is archived?
When a provider listing is archived, websites hosted by that provider will no longer be shown as “hosted green” by our Green Web Check or Greencheck API which receives up to 7 million requests daily. Badges that were once showing a green result will now show a grey result instead.
Additionally, that provider will no longer appear in our Green Web Directory.
What impact will this have and to who?
The impacts of archiving any of the hosting providers listed above will be felt by both users of the Green Web Check, as well as other downstream hosting providers reliant on their services.
Green Web Check results for websites
Green Web Check results for domains that are hosted on an archived provider will return with a “No evidence found” message. They would no longer be considered as “green hosted” by other tools that rely on our Dataset or API – like Website Carbon Calculator, Ecograder, or WebPageTest.
Downstream hosting provider listings
We know from looking at the information in our Dataset, there are several hosting providers whose status as a verified provider is tied to their use of one of the providers listed above i.e. AWS or Meta/Facebook. Such companies who are reliant on these larger providers are what we refer to as “downstream hosting providers”.
We understand that archiving these listings could put these downstream providers in a difficult position. Throughout this process we have been proactively communicating to the owners of these downstream providers to keep them informed and ask for their assistance in finding suitable owners.
For these downstream providers, if the upstream provider they rely on (AWS/Meta) is archived at the time of their next reverification then these downstream (often smaller) hosting providers will have an increased onus of providing proof to retain their green status. They can still be a verified provider in their own right, but they will need to share copies of sustainability reports, green energy certificates, or other similar documents on behalf of their upstream provider as well as evidence proving their use of that provider’s services.
We appreciate this represents more work for the smaller providers. It also creates more work for us. We’re disappointed not to have the required engagement from these larger, well-resourced upstream providers to make this easier for all involved.
Can these providers be reinstated in the Green Web Dataset?
Yes! These upstream providers (AWS and Meta/Facebook) can be reinstated in the Green Web Dataset. To do this, a representative working at those companies can get in contact via the support form on our website. If you work at one of the organisations listed above, and want to help then please do reach out to us. As a reminder, our verification and reverification processes are offered without charge.
Likewise if you are a customer of these organisations, please consider using your patronage to lobby them to contact us about finding a representative for their listing. We’ve prepared a short email template that you can use, which includes links for the best ways they can contact us to get the ball moving.
