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Hostinger's carbon neutral claim - offsets don't check out?

Datacenter Talk by wilmaethqn44 66 replies 4.6K views
3 #1

Sorry for the silly question maybe, but I was looking at my host's page and it says "carbon neutral since 2019" with a little leaf badge. I clicked through because I'm trying to be more concious about this stuff for my shop.

The offsets they list:
- Wind farm in Turkey, 2019-2021
- Reforestation in Kenya, 2020-present
- Methane capture in "Vestland Province" (no country listed)

I checked the wind farm. The company doesn't exist anymore. The website is a domain parker now. The reforestation project, I found the NGO but their last update was 2022 and it says "pilot concluded."

I can't find Vestland Province anywhere. There's Vestland county in Norway but no methane project I can locate.

I emailed them two weeks ago, no reply. Is this normal? Should I just switch? I'm on a cheap plan with Hostinger, don't want to break things moving if I'm overreacting

frames, tables, still valid HTML
#2

Hey folks

Not overreacting, Wilma. Greenwashing hurts everyone; genuine hosts get tarred same brush.

Hostinger's page changed last week — https://www.hostinger.com. I checked after seeing this thread. Now says "on our carbon neutral journey" — no dates, no project names, no leaf badge. Archived copy from May still has the 2019 claim.

I'll reach out to Lee for comment. Keep it civil.

~be kind or be gone~
#3

Right then, proper embarrassing this one. Not going to duck it.

We bought those offsets through a broker, yeah? Seemed legit at the time, certificates and all. Turns out the broker was, how to say, optimistic about verification. The wind farm — we got a "project retired" notice six months after we bought. Reforestation NGO ghosted us. Vestland thing, I suspect the broker made it up, cheers lads.

We yanked the dates because we can't prove them. "Journey" is weasel-worded, I'll own that. Working with actual auditor now, not cheap, takes time.

Stay or go, your call. No hard feelings.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
#4

¡the broker optimistic! The words kind, Lee. The reality, it is the fraud simple.

I work the datacenter green in Barcelona. The certificates, they need the registry independent, yes? The project the Verra, the Gold Standard. The broker without registry, it is the red flag big.

The page new "journey" — it is the greenwashing also. Without date, without proof, it is the claim empty. ¡the customer deserves the data concrete!

I recommend the tool the Cozie, it checks the credits automatic. The host honest, it publishes the ID serial. The Hostinger, it does not. This is the problem the transparency.

hot air, steady hand, magic smoke
#5

Registry checks are table stakes. Any host not publishing serial IDs is suspect. Hostinger's broker didn't even use a known standard. This is negligence not bad luck; "journey" without baseline year is meaningless. Compare to Hetzner which publishes quarterly retirements with blockchain trace. The gap is structural not cosmetic;

#6

Which broker was this? Name matters.

#7

Blockchain trace is the bare minimum, yeah

oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
3 #8
guruhere said:
Which broker was this? Name matters.

Rather not say publicly until the auditor's done, yeah? Legal looking at it. Wasn't one of the big names, I'll tell you that much. Small shop, seemed hungry, prices too good. Lesson learned.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
4 #9
lee_mcr said:
Blockchain trace is the bare minimum, yeah

Hetzner's trace is nice but let's be real, most shops don't verify. I spun up a VPS there last month, checked their retirement page, serial matched. Took me maybe four minutes. Four minutes! If Hostinger's customers can't do that, the system failed.

oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
#10

I am in Barcelona also, Sofia. The Cozie tool, it is good but the API costs now. I use the Carbon Trust open registry instead. Free, slow, but works.

The Hostinger, I moved my blog last year to OVH for this reason. OVH publishes the certificates with ID. Not perfect, but visible.

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