You’d be hard-pressed not to hear doom-and-gloom stories about the environment, greenhouse gases, and global warming these days. With all the bad news, most of us want to know how we can help. We’ve unplugged our chargers; we’ve replaced our incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent ones; we’ve even started taking shorter showers (or we’ve thought about it). But it’s not like we can really hook up our homes and businesses to wind power. Or can we? Well, OK—no we can’t. But we can use the service of TreeCentric, a company that has done the next best thing—purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).

TreeCentric is a progressive, privately-owned U.S.-based company that provides website and email hosting services, as well as domain registration. TreeCentric help businesses take responsibility and make a difference in the world through everyday business activities. For instance, when customers support TreeCentric by signing up for a service such as email hosting, TreeCentric in turn, supports the earth by reducing its footprint on the earth.

How do RECs work? While we all need electricity to run our businesses, the downside is that these resources pollute our air, land, and water—and contribute to global climate change. Thankfully, renewable energy sources such as solar electric and wind can produce electricity without the same negative impact. TreeCentric ensures that the electricity it uses is made from such renewable energy sources—and, therefore, doesn’t produce greenhouse gas emissions. To do so, TreeCentric purchases REC certificates from an authorized renewable energy facility that generates electricity.

For instance, TreeCentric purchases credits from a renewable energy facility like a windmill farm. And this essentially displaces the need for other non-renewable sources—like a coal plant—to provide TreeCentric with power.

TreeCentric is also Green-e certified, ensuring that TreeCentric’s renewable energy meets the nation’s leading independent certification and verification standards.