Green Hosting Claims Verified — 15 Hosts Fact-Checked

Written by Tom George · How we research hosts

Why We Checked This

An earlier version of this page checked only the 8 mainstream hosts we cover elsewhere on the site. That was the wrong starting point: it audited the hosts that say the least about being green. If you care about green hosting, the hosts worth checking are the ones that declare themselves green.

So we started there. We took the Green Web Foundation's public directory of verified green hosting providers, added the hosts that build their marketing around being green (GreenGeeks, Krystal, Kualo, Infomaniak, HostPapa, DreamHost, and Hetzner, which publishes a detailed sustainability page), and read each one's own claim word for word. Then we put the same questions to the 8 mainstream hosts: what exactly is claimed, what mechanism sits behind it, and who other than the host has checked it?

We did not hands-on test any of these hosts for speed or reliability. This page checks green claims only.

The Independent Check: The Green Web Directory

The Green Web Foundation is a nonprofit that keeps the most widely used open list of green hosts. Its Green Web Directory lists 358 verified providers in 40 countries (as read on 1 November 2026). Per the directory itself, a provider is verified by sharing evidence with the foundation that it is taking steps to avoid, reduce or offset the emissions from the electricity it uses, refreshed at least yearly. Verification is free.

Two limits matter. First, this is verification of submitted evidence, not an audit or a certification like B Corp. Second, only 244 of the 358 entries list published supporting evidence on the directory page, so a listing does not always let you read the proof yourself. Even so, it is the closest thing to an independent check that exists for most hosts, and it is free to search: you can look up any host at app.greenweb.org/directory.

We searched all 358 entries by name for each of the 15 hosts. Listed: Kinsta, SiteGround, Hostinger, GreenGeeks, Krystal, Kualo, Infomaniak, and Hetzner. Not listed: WP Engine, Cloudways, Rocket.net, Bluehost, GoDaddy, HostPapa, and DreamHost. Note the last two: HostPapa and DreamHost both talk about green hosting, but neither appears in the directory.

The Pattern Among Mainstream Hosts: Three Hosts, One Cloud Provider

Kinsta, WP Engine, and SiteGround all make a green-hosting claim. All three run on Google Cloud Platform. And in every case we checked, the actual substance behind the claim is Google's own published commitment to match 100% of its energy consumption with renewable energy — not a separate program built by the hosting company itself.

SiteGround is the most transparent about this: its own blog post says outright, "we are not a data center provider, and are not operating our own data center facilities." Kinsta's page is the least clear — its meta description claims "100% renewable energy," but the visible page text never repeats that figure or explains where it comes from.

That's not necessarily dishonest. Google's commitment is real and independently reported. But it means the actual differentiator between these three hosts' "green" credentials is close to zero — they're citing the same underlying fact.

Hosts That Declare Themselves Green

These seven make sustainability part of the sales pitch, or publish a dedicated page on it. "Mechanism" is what the host's own pages say actually happens; we quote the host, and where we could not check a figure we say so.

Infomaniak — The Most Complete Evidence Trail

Infomaniak, a Swiss host, has the most layers of proof of the 15. Its ecology page says all operations run on certified renewable electricity (hydropower and other local renewables), that ISO 14001 (environmental management) and ISO 50001 (energy management) certification dates from 2015, that its emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 are measured annually and audited by an independent third party, and that its data centres average a PUE (power-usage effectiveness, where 1.0 is perfect) under 1.1. It is listed in the Green Web Directory with a 2024 greenhouse-gas balance report and evidence of a green electricity tariff, and B Lab's directory lists it as a Certified B Corporation (2025). Two caveats: "carbon neutral since 2007" and "we offset 200% of our total CO2 emissions" are Infomaniak's own statements, and offsets are a different thing from renewable electricity. It also says it is developing its own solar production to raise the renewable share of its supply.

Krystal — Honest About Matching, With Named Contracts

Krystal, a UK host, explains on its green page that matching still relies on the grid: "for every unit of electricity our data centres draw, an equivalent unit from a renewable source goes into the grid". What sets it apart is that it names the contracts: a direct power purchase agreement with the London Array offshore wind farm, contracted with RWE until 2035, and a 10-year agreement with Rye Development for hydroelectric power matched to consumption hour by hour rather than annually. It is a verified Green Web Directory provider and a Certified B Corp since January 2023 per B Lab's directory. It also offsets employees' carbon through Ecologi, which is a separate, smaller claim. We could check the B Corp status and directory listing; we could not independently confirm the contract terms, which are Krystal's statements.

Hetzner — Real Hydropower, and Frank About the Gap

Hetzner's sustainability page says its German data centres have run on hydropower since 2008 and its Finland park since opening in 2018 (hydropower and wind), that its German sites are EMAS-certified, and, unusually, that "Hetzner is not yet climate-neutral" because it has not finished a full greenhouse-gas inventory. The Green Web Directory lists it with an ISO 14001 certificate and Renewable Energy Certificates for Finland. Its claim is about electricity sourcing only; it does not claim offsets or neutrality, which makes it easier to trust than a broader promise.

Kualo — Two Countries, Two Mechanisms

Kualo, a UK host, says its US operations run on 100% renewable energy "as certified by Green-e", while its UK data centre buys green-sourced power through the Open Energy Market from producers such as Statkraft. Its directory listing includes a REGO certificate (the UK's renewable-electricity certificate) and an Ecologi carbon-credit certificate. It adds tree planting and carbon removal through Ecologi, stating 87,462 trees and 2,489.9 tons of CO2 removed so far and a plan to offset over 5,000 tons by the end of 2030 to become carbon negative. Those totals come from Kualo's own page and Ecologi; we did not audit them.

GreenGeeks — The Loudest Number, an Estimate Underneath

GreenGeeks' headline is a "300% renewable energy match". Its own page explains how: it tells the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (a Green-e partner) how many servers and staff it has, BEF calculates the yearly consumption, and BEF buys Renewable Energy Certificates for three times that amount. So the 300% is based on a calculated estimate of consumption, and it is certificates (RECs), not electricity supplied directly. That is a legitimate and common approach, and GreenGeeks is listed in the Green Web Directory with a 2025 BEF report. It also says the US EPA has recognised it as a Green Power Partner since 2009, which we did not independently confirm. A one-tree-per-account planting programme is a separate, offset-style claim. If you are comparing GreenGeeks as a host for a Node.js app, see our Node.js hosting guide.

HostPapa — A Claim With Nothing Attached

HostPapa's own blog says the company supports solar and wind by "buying RECs to power our operations". We found no percentage, no dated report, no certificate and no named supplier on its pages, and HostPapa is not in the Green Web Directory. That does not mean the claim is false, only that a reader has nothing to check it against.

DreamHost — Its Own Page Claims Less Than Reviews Say

Many third-party listicles describe DreamHost as carbon-neutral and 100% renewable. DreamHost's own green page makes neither claim. It says its data centres use high-efficiency cooling and power-efficient processors, that it is a partner in "state-level 'clean wind' programs", and that the grids it draws from "obtain electricity from many renewable sources". The rest of the page is about its remote-first team. DreamHost is not in the Green Web Directory. If you saw a stronger claim elsewhere, check that it comes from DreamHost.

One host we could not score: A2 Hosting, whose old green-hosting page now lands on the homepage of its successor brand hosting.com, where we found no green claim.

The 8 Mainstream Hosts: Claim vs. Verified Fact

"Verified fact" below is the most concrete, checkable detail we found for each host — not our summary of their marketing copy. "3rd-Party Proof" now includes the Green Web Directory listing, which an earlier version of this page missed.

Hostinger — The Most Substantive Claim Among Mainstream Hosts

Hostinger is the only mainstream host here publishing dated, numbered reports rather than a single marketing sentence. Its 2025 report states Scope 1 emissions of 0.2 tCO2e, market-based Scope 2 emissions of 23 tCO2e, and Scope 3 emissions of 20,656 tCO2e, alongside a claim of matching 100% of data center electricity with renewable sources through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and direct supply contracts.

That's still self-reported, not independently audited, though Hostinger is listed in the Green Web Directory. It is a real, trackable number a reader can compare year over year — something none of the other 7 mainstream hosts offer. Among all 15 hosts, Infomaniak's evidence trail is deeper.

SiteGround — Honest About the Indirection

SiteGround's 2021 blog post (still live, last updated 2025) is unusually candid: it states plainly that SiteGround doesn't operate its own data centers and relies entirely on Google Cloud's renewable-energy commitment. When a reader asked in the comments for a "carbon-neutral hosting" badge to display on their own site, SiteGround's own team replied, "As of now, we don't offer badges like this."

That's a more honest framing than most hosts give — SiteGround isn't claiming an independent achievement, it's crediting its infrastructure partner directly.

GoDaddy — A Real Target, Vague on Mechanism

As a publicly traded company, GoDaddy publishes an annual sustainability report with a dated, quantified target: cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions 90% by 2030. That's more formal than most private hosts' pages. But the mechanism is qualified — GoDaddy's own Environmental Policy says it "seeks to procure renewable energy... where possible," and no specific current renewable percentage turned up in our research.

Kinsta — Where the Claim Outruns the Page

Kinsta's dedicated green-hosting page has meta tags and social-share text asserting "100% renewable energy." Read the actual visible content, though, and that number never appears — the page instead talks about data centers using "about 50% less energy than other options" (an efficiency claim, a different thing entirely) and spends several paragraphs on Cloudflare's own separate sustainability initiative, which is Cloudflare's commitment, not Kinsta's.

This is the clearest example in our audit of a meta-tag claim that the body content doesn't actually back up. Kinsta is, however, listed in the Green Web Directory, so the claim has some independent backing beyond its own page.

WP Engine — No Page, Just a Quote

WP Engine has no dedicated sustainability page at all. The closest thing is a customer case study where a client is quoted saying WP Engine runs on "carbon-neutral Google Cloud servers" — a real statement, but one describing Google's infrastructure, not a WP Engine-specific commitment.

Bluehost — The Vaguest Claim

Bluehost's only environmental statement we could find is a single sentence in a November 2025 press release about migrating its infrastructure to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: the move "aligns with Bluehost's commitment to sustainable growth, reducing carbon emissions." No specific figure, no named renewable program, no report. It's the weakest and least specific claim of the 8.

Cloudways and Rocket.net — No Claim to Verify

Cloudways' only content on the subject is a generic glossary page defining "green hosting" as a general concept — it never asserts that Cloudways itself is green, which makes sense given customers choose their own underlying cloud provider (DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr, or Linode) per server. Rocket.net makes no public sustainability claim at all; a third-party host-comparison site independently confirms the same finding.

Neither is being deceptive here — they're just not making a claim, which is arguably more honest than an unsupported one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is any web host actually B Corp certified?

Yes, two of the 15 we checked: Krystal (certified January 2023) and Infomaniak (certified 2025), per B Lab's public directory. None of the 8 mainstream hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, Rocket.net, Cloudways, Hostinger, SiteGround, Bluehost, GoDaddy) is listed as a Certified B Corp. We did not find B Lab listings for GreenGeeks, HostPapa, DreamHost, Kualo or Hetzner either, but that search is worth repeating at bcorporation.net if it matters to you. B Corp is one of the few independently audited credentials in this space.

What is the Green Web Directory, and does a listing mean a host is green?

It is the Green Web Foundation's free, public list of verified green hosting providers: 358 in 40 countries as of 1 November 2026. Hosts submit evidence that they avoid, reduce or offset the emissions from the electricity they use, and the foundation checks it at least yearly. A listing is stronger than a marketing page, but it is verification of submitted evidence, not an audit, and only 139 of the 353 entries publish an evidence document you can read.

Which hosts call themselves green but have no independent check?

Of the 15 we checked, HostPapa and DreamHost. Neither is in the Green Web Directory, neither is a B Corp we could find, and neither publishes a percentage or dated report on its own pages. DreamHost's own green page makes weaker claims than many reviews attribute to it.

Why do so many hosts' green claims mention Google Cloud?

Kinsta, WP Engine, and SiteGround all build on Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, and Google has published a real, dated commitment to match 100% of its energy consumption with renewable energy since 2017. When these hosts say they're "green," they're almost always describing Google's infrastructure commitment, not a separate program of their own. SiteGround is the most upfront about this; Kinsta's page is the least clear about it.

What's the difference between renewable energy and carbon offsetting?

Renewable energy means the electricity powering a data center actually comes from a source like solar, wind, or hydro, either directly or matched through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Carbon offsetting means a company keeps using regular grid power but pays for an equivalent amount of carbon reduction elsewhere, such as reforestation. Hostinger's claim is REC-based renewable matching; a tree-planting program (as some hosts run) is closer to offsetting. They're not the same thing, even though marketing pages often blur them together.

Does a host's green claim affect website performance?

Not directly. A host's underlying cloud provider's energy sourcing has no bearing on how fast your site loads. Server efficiency, caching, and CDN setup (which several hosts also fold into their "green" pitch as a secondary point) do affect performance, but that's a separate claim from the energy-sourcing one and should be evaluated on its own merits.

Which host has the most verifiable green hosting claim?

Of the 15, Infomaniak: certified renewable electricity, ISO 14001 and 50001 since 2015, third-party-audited emissions, a Green Web Directory listing with published reports, and B Corp certification. Krystal is close behind, with named power contracts, the same listing, and B Corp status. Among the 8 mainstream hosts, Hostinger's is the most substantive: dated annual reports with Scope 1, 2 and 3 figures, still self-reported.

The Bottom Line

If a green hosting claim matters to your decision, don't stop at the marketing page. Ask three questions: does the host name a mechanism (own renewable supply, a named power contract, certificates, a dated report), is there a check from someone other than the host (the Green Web Directory, an ISO certificate, B Corp), and is it honest about what it does not claim?

On those questions, Infomaniak, Krystal and Hetzner have the strongest evidence of the 15, and Hetzner is the plainest about its limits. GreenGeeks and Kualo have real certificate-based claims and directory listings, with the caveat that certificates and offsets are not the same as running on renewable power directly. HostPapa and DreamHost sit at the bottom of the hosts that talk about green hosting: no independent check and no figure to test. Among the mainstream hosts, Hostinger and SiteGround gave us the most to verify, and Kinsta's claim is stronger than its own page makes it look because of its directory listing.

Being green is not the same as being the right host for your site. We have not tested most of the hosts on this page for speed or reliability; check that separately before you move.

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Read Our Kinsta Review →