Shropshire report assesses environmental impact
A digital marketing agency in Shropshire has produced a report which assesses the website emissions of B-Corp-certified companies.
The aim of the study, by SEO Director and co-founder of GrowRoom Will Bourne, was to highlight the environmental impact of these companies’ websites and encourage B-Corps to make reducing the environmental impact of their websites a priority.
The company evaluated a five per cent sample of B-Corp certified organisations with a headcount of 10 or more.
"Using tools like Green Web Check and Ecograder by Mightybytes, we assessed their websites sustainability," said Will. "Green Web Check verifies whether websites use hosting powered by renewable energy, while Ecograder estimates greenhouse gas emissions per page load and offers ways to improve your score.
"The study focused on homepage performance as a representative sample.
"Websites contribute to carbon emissions through the energy required to power servers and transfer data. Reducing these emissions is a key component of global environmental responsibility, especially as businesses become more reliant on digital platforms.
"By making websites more carbon-efficient, companies can significantly reduce their environmental impact. As an added bonus, this often helps the websites convert better, whether that’s increased sign-ups, enquiries or sales."
"The study produced some rather concerning results," Will added.
"The overall emissions of the 5 per cent of websites we tested were approximately 255,780kg, or 255.6 tonnes, of carbon emissions per year.
"From this we can estimate that the websites of all B-Corps that operate in the UK and US combined emit somewhere in the region of 5,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.
"The average Ecograder score across all reviewed sites was 58, indicating a widespread need for improvement. The average carbon emission per pageload of all homepages was 2.56g.
"Notably, 33 per cent of the websites were not using green hosting. This is one of the simplest changes a company can make to reduce their website’s GHG emissions."
To support companies committed to sustainability, GrowRoom is offering a free website carbon reduction service through their Green Web Project.
To read the full study, see the data and find out how you can reduce the emissions of your website, see the study https://growroom.agency/green-web-project/b-corp-study-2024/
