The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized web host 1 & 1 Internet (www.1and1.com) for its Lenexa, Kansas Data Center for the annual purchase of 17.5 million kilowatt hours of green electricity.

According 1and1 Wednesday’s announcement, the EPA has appointed Lenexa installing green energy partner, marking the company’s next step in its efforts to protect the environment. Because I could not feed its Lenexa data center directly using renewable energy specifically, 1 & 1 opted to offset its energy footprint by funding projects that generate electricity from renewable resources like wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal.

As part of its initiative to reduce their impact on Earth’s climate, 1 & 1 started buying Green-e certified renewable energy certificates in 2008 of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (www.bef.org), a national provider of green energy products. Most of the RECs is from a low-impact hydroelectric facility in Lawrence, Kansas, certified by the Low Impact Hydro Institute.

Equivalent to 100 percent of the purchased electricity used by the Data Center of Kansas, EPA estimates that 1 & 1 new green power purchase is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions of more than 2,000 passenger vehicles year.

“This is a great honor and we are proud to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” 1 & 1 CEO Oliver Mauss said in a statement. “1 & 1 continued purchase of green power helps our organization become more sustainable, while sending a message to other companies across the U.S. that supporting clean sources of electricity is an important option for reduce climate risk. ”

A subsidiary of Germany-based Internet service provider United Internet (www.united-internet.de), 1 & 1 for five data centers around the world are among the world’s energy more efficiently. In addition to purchasing RECs, 1 & 1 continues its efforts through the use of green power sources, high efficiency with less than 20 percent of heat loss, and the omission of unnecessary components in their servers. Globally, 1 & 1 green efforts offset the emissions of more than 30,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

1 & 1 recently added the new single-core S Server to its existing line of servers, providing a higher power – and ecological – solution for companies graduating from shared hosting solutions.

“EPA commends our major partners for their continued commitment to protecting the environment by using green energy, the” EPA’s climate protection partnerships Division Director Kathleen Hogan, said in a statement. “By supporting green energy, Kansas 1 & 1 Internet Data Center is reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases, support clean energy technologies and contribute to a clean energy future.”