WRAPS – Non-Government-Organisations (NGOs)

6 browser windows containing symbols: a tree, an icon of a heart hovering above two hands, an accessibility icon, a lock, a heart monitor and normal web content
Posted on (updated: ) by Klaas Ole Jordan

For the third part of the WRAPS series, I looked at the homepages of well-known NGOs focusing on environmental and climate protection. Namely those are 350.org, Bird Life, BUND, ClientEarth, Friends of Earth, Greenpeace, NABU, Robin Wood, WWF and Zero Waste Europe.

The results show that even climate organisations don’t have sustainability on their radar when it comes to web development.

  1. Results
  2. Criteria
  3. NGO Homepages
  4. Summary

Results

The evaluation is again based on five criteria. The criteria and their weighting is explained in more detail in a dedicated post. The overall score is calculated as follows:

Performance (CWV) (24%)
Privacy (20%)
Accessibility (a11y) (15%)
Content (5%)

The results reveal some weaknesses, but there are also positive examples in almost all categories. Greenpeace scores highest in the ranking, with a homepage that loads quickly, uses data relatively sparingly, and also performs comparatively well in terms of privacy.

#TeamTotalCWVCO2A11yPrivatInhalt
1.Greenpeace74.6%100%70%56%60%100%
2.Robin Wood72.0%100%50%42%93%100%
3.Zero Waste Europe59.8%100%41%45%47%100%
4.Friends of Earth53.4%94%53%45%0%100%
5.ClientEarth52.9%97%18%41%60%100%
6.BUND51.4%100%31%39%27%100%
7.NABU50.0%100%3%44%67%100%
8.Bird Life39.2%82%0%43%40%100%
9.WWF38.4%67%24%41%13%100%
10.350.org25.0%40%0%43%20%100%

Performance (CWV)

Seven out of ten homepages score more than 90% of the points in this category. Only one website scores less than 50%. That’s a good result. The homepages are particularly impressive in terms of interactivity, with all homepages achieving a response time (INP) of less than 200 ms in the .75 quantile. When it comes to loading times, many websites are just fast enough to avoid losing points.

Carbon Footprint

Overall, the homepages consume too much data (and with that too much carbon) when first accessed. On the median 4.5 MB of data are sent through the network.

The caching behaviour of the homepages is a positive feature. When reloading, large parts of the assets could be reused in almost all cases, so that on median only 657kB of data are transferred over the network during repeated visits. There is only one outlier where a self-loading video is explicitly excluded from caching. As a result, this website consumes 40MB with every visit.

Accessibility

Unfortunately, there are no high scores to report here. Only one website allows visitors to increase the contrast of the content. Dark mode or other settings for font and colour: none. No homepage offers content in simple language. At least other best practices for accessibility are reasonably well adhered to.

Privacy

Here we have some positive examples of no data being shared with third parties. Robin Wood and NABU do not force you to connect to external servers. Unfortunately, there are also negative examples where unsolicited connections are made to servers belonging to Meta, LinkedIn, Google, and/or Microsoft.

There are also some security vulnerabilities to report. Security headers are often missing, and in some cases outdated libraries are in use.

Content

All of the websites tested are committed to important charitable causes, so I gave them all full marks. However, some attempts to persuade visitors to donate come across as dark patterns and, on closer inspection, could be penalised with point deductions.

Since I’ve given full marks across the board here, I wont go into further detail on this category below.

How the results of the homepages came to pass

More details on the results are summarized in a PDF file. There you can also see how many points were achieved in the subcategories.

Greenpeace is known for its spectacular actions and campaigns for environmental protection and climate justice. Although its homepage is not spectacularly good, it scores over 50% in all categories and achieves full marks in Core Web Vitals, which is enough for overall victory with 74.6%.

100% Core Web Vitals
No problems in this category. The website loads quickly, loads robustly, and interaction with it is fluid (as is the case with all of its competitors).
70% Carbon Footprint
Best result of all websites in this category as well. The only thing that stands out here is the AI chatbot, which loads unsolicited and produces 500kB of data exchange; lazy loading would be desirable here. Unfortunately, no green server is in use either.
56% Accessibility
Greenpeace is the only website that offers the option to adjust colours. Visitors can increase the colour contrast. However, there is no dark mode available here either.
60% Privacy
Here, too, the chatbot plays a significant role, causing that contact is established with an external server. A tracking service is also accessed before the cookie question is answered. Unfortunately, important security headers are also missing. However, compared to the competition, this is still a good result.

Robin Wood is committed to climate protection in Germany. Robin Wood stands out here for its excellent privacy protection. If it were more economical with data during the initial loading, it would have been enough for first place in this ranking. As it is, it scores 72% of the points.

100% Core Web Vitals
Full marks for Robin Wood. The homepage stutters during loading, but it’s just stable enough to prevent points being deducted.
50% Carbon Footprint
The first time it loads, about 7.5MB is sent over the network. That’s way too much and costs valuable points. Modern image formats could have saved almost 90% of the data here. The second time it loads, it looks really good.
42% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.
93% Privacy
Almost full marks for privacy, no external servers are accessed, and the website is also secure.

Zero Waste is a support network for a Europe without waste. Their website also isn’t wasted completely in any category. They score full points in Core Web Vitals, but otherwise just under 50% in each category, resulting in a total of 59.8% and third place.

100% Core Web Vitals
Zero Waste Europe also scores full marks in this category. This website is also a bit clunky during render, but manages to avoid losing points.
41% Carbon Footprint
Mediocre data consumption performance; fewer tracking scripts and modern image formats could improve the result here.
45% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.
47% Privacy
External servers from two partners are accessed without permission, including, unfortunately, several from Google.

Friends of Earth advocates for social and environmental justice. Unfortunately, they disclose a lot of personal (social) data by forcing visitors to connect to servers of all kinds of big tech providers, resulting in an overall score of only 53.4%.

94% Core Web Vitals
The website loads a little too slowly and stutters too much while the page is loading. However, this only results in a small deduction in points.
53% Carbon Footprint
Mediocre results in terms of carbon emissions, with the many external servers from which data is retrieved having a significant impact here.
45% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.
0% Privacy
Connections are established with servers from Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Twitter, and others. No points are awarded in this category.

ClientEarth uses legal means to combat environmental destruction. In terms of privacy, the most legally relevant category, this website was reasonably convincing. They rank just behind FoE with 52.9%.

97% Core Web Vitals
The website loads a little too slowly, so there are a few minor deductions. Otherwise, everything is fine.
18% Carbon Footprint
Data traffic during repeated loading costs points in particular, and this is where the integration of Facebook, Twitter, and Google services takes its toll.
41% Accessibility
Similar to most other websites. Accessibility is fine according to Lighthouse, but there is no option to make adjustments.
60% Privacy
Unfortunately, connections are also established to several servers here. However, the site is exemplary in terms of security, as it sends all relevant security headers.

The BUND is committed to biodiversity, climate protection, and sustainable agriculture, and scores just over half of all points. The page loads quickly but uses too much data.

100% Core Web Vitals
Full marks for Core Web Vitals, with only the jerkiness during page loading almost resulting in point deductions.
31% Carbon Footprint
Unfortunately, too much data exchange is produced during the initial loading, so even acceptable caching behaviour cannot save much.
39% Accessibility
Similar to almost all websites, but Lighthouse deducts more points on this website than on others.
27% Privacy
Unfortunately, many external servers are accessed without being requested, including Google, Bing, and Facebook.

The NABU is committed to preserving biological diversity and promoting sustainable agriculture. Fortunately, there is no diversity when it comes to connections to external servers: not a single external connection is on the credit side. Far too much data is chased around the web upon visiting their homepage. It results in exactly 50%.

100% Core Web Vitals
No weaknesses in Core Web Vitals. It loads fast, renders robustly and is smooth to interact with.
3% Carbon Footprint
24MB when loading the website for the first time, and “only” 1.4MB when reloading it. That hardly earns any points.
44% Accessibility
Lighthouse Score is okay, no color or language adjustments are possible.
67% Privacy
No connection to external servers. That’s exemplary. Unfortunately, some security headers are missing.

Bird Life is the international umbrella organisation for bird conservation. Unfortunately, over 40MB are flying to visitors every time a page is viewed, which is more than wasteful. In the end, it’s 39.2%.

82% Core Web Vitals
The page loads too slowly. This results in some deductions.
0% Carbon Footprint
A self-loading video that is explicitly excluded from caching results in an incredibly large data volume. This should be fixed quickly.
43% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.
40% Privacy
Here, too, connections are made to several external servers. At least the website is protected by security headers.

WWF ist global aktiv für den Schutz der Natur. Die Website ist zu langsam und verbraucht zu viele Daten. So reicht es nur zu 38,4% Punkten.

67% Core Web Vitals
4.04 seconds for displaying the most important element (LCP) is too long. The other two subcategories received full marks.
24% Carbon Footprint
Modern image formats and lazy loading would save a lot of data here during the initial load.
41% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.
13% Privacy
Here too, it’s the same old story: connections are established to many external servers without being asked.

350.org is an international movement campaigning for the phase-out of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, its website is too slow, uses too much data, and is not very convincing in terms of privacy. As a result, it only scores 25%.

40% Core Web Vitals
The website loads too slowly and is too jerky. It therefore has the lowest score of all the homepages in this category.
0% Carbon Footprint
Unfortunately, no points in this category. Modern image formats on first load and fewer connections to external partners on repeated loads would save data.
43% Accessibility
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colors can be customised by visitors.
20% Privacy
As with almost all websites, most best practices are followed, but neither language nor colours can be customised by visitors.

Fazit

The results show that even these organizations specialising in sustainability have not yet addressed sustainability on the web. There is still much to be done to raise awareness of this issue.

Greenpeace ultimately prevailed because the site performs well in Core Web Vitals (like some other homepages) and does not show any major weaknesses in the other categories.

On a positive note, the caching behaviour of the websites is good (with one exception), meaning that little data is consumed during repeat visits.

Tagged #wraps

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