7. We’re ethically and socially responsible.

We’re a pretty caring bunch of people.  We are, and always have been, committed to reducing our impact on the environment, long before it became the hot topic it now is.

We are big believers in taking practical steps to make sure we minimise waste and power consumption. An interesting challenge when you’re looking after over 3,000 servers!

A lot of server hosting companies are simply ‘going carbon neutral’, and proclaiming this as a catchall answer to the environmental challenges faced by datacentres. At Melbourne, we’d rather take pragmatic steps to tangibly reduce our energy consumption on a real basis.

Here’s a flavour of what we’re doing:

• We buy renewable power in our managed hosting datacentres.
• We use and recommend virtualisation to save power and equipment wherever appropriate.
• Our standard hosting solutions revolve around low-voltage (energy efficient) server models.
• We take practical steps in our datacentres to reduce the need for cooling, including the use of blanking plates and cold aisle containment.
• We use the most efficient UPS and air conditioning possible.
• We use e-billing, and operate a ‘no paper’ policy wherever possible in our offices.
• For the little that we do print, we recycle paper, and buy recycled paper.

Melbourne won the “big green chip” award for our environmental initiative at the 2009 Big Chip Awards.

View our Environmental and Ethical Policy for further details of what we’re up to.