Bytemark have always planned for the long-term. Our impact on the environment is no exception to that approach.

Our use of energy is our single most notable impact on the environment. By pursuing lower long-term energy costs, we naturally make business decisions that reduce our environmental impact.

The most important principle that we follow is to select premium, lower-powered options that reduce costs over the long-term instead of choosing the short-term savings of cheaper, less efficient components.

This practical, business-led approach means we can confidently stand behind a sustainable commitment to the environment.

This commitment has led us to increasingly innovative and effective means of saving energy and reducing cost: from selecting efficient server components to our custom-designed data centre cooled by fresh Yorkshire air.

Based on the principle above, here are some of the specific steps we take to reduce our impact on the environment:

We build our servers by hand and select low-power components

All our dedicated servers are built by hand. That means we can carefully select each component for our servers. Each of our servers is built using efficient power supplies as certified by the 80plus scheme, which requires power supplies to be at least 80% efficient at up to 100% rated load:

• All our Premium dedicated servers use 80 Plus Platinum certified power supplies.
• Dedicated servers use a minimum of Bronze certified power supplies.
• All servers since 2014 have been built with Platinum-level power supplies.

Building our servers by hand means we can extend the life of durable components such as server cases and upgradeable motherboards; we recycle components from older or cancelled servers rather than discarding them. Repurposing server components for up to five years dramatically reduces the need to dispose of electronic waste.

In Manchester, we partner with the charity Emerge to handle the safe recycling and disposal of our e-waste.

The environment around us can help: fresh Yorkshire air rather than power-hungry air conditioning

We designed our fully-owned, custom-built data centre “YO26” to be as energy efficient as possible.

Most notably, we minimise the need for expensive air-conditioning by using fresh air cooling. When the external temperature is less than 21.5 C — 90% of the hours in the year! — the data centre can be cooled without the use of air conditioning compressors.

Additionally, we use cold aisle containment to make the most of fresh air cooling. Cold aisle containment means servers are cooled efficiently by passing cold air over the warmest part of a server, which is then exhausted into non-cooled spaces. This minimises the mixing of hot and cold air, which would require further cooling. We use blanking plates as standard on racks to prevent air leakage and further enhance cooling efficiency.

Our Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) units operate at 94% efficiency. UPS units provide power to our servers continuously in the event of a power outage or brownout.

All this combined means YO26 can operate with an exceptionally low PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.2 or less (an ideal is 1.0).

All power consumption is monitored in real-time and logged, so we can track usage over time and continually find ways to improve.

Carefully considering customer needs

We offer a range of products including dedicated and virtual (cloud) servers. Not every customer needs the power and expense of a dedicated server.

Working closely with our customers to understand their needs, we’ll happily offer a cheaper, more energy-efficient virtual server if appropriate. We don’t bulk out sales targets with expensive, overpowered servers.