TL;DR: Candidates for the Totnes / South Devon constituency via for eco-centric seat. None of the major political parties are making enough of an effort to make their websites eco-friendly.
In the run-up to a General Election in the Totnes / South Devon constituency, candidates will make all kinds of promises, pledges & statements. This post isn’t about dissecting the noise, but about what they’ve actually done with their online presence & how they could have scored easy points by making their websites eco-friendly.
The rationale is that the cost of a sustainably designed website is no different from that of one that isn’t. So, if candidates want to talk about what they are going to do for the environment, then maybe they should be looking at how they are impacting it.
In the newly formed South Devon constituency (previously Totnes), there are currently five candidates running:
- Anthony Mangnall (Incumbent), Conservative
- Caroline Voaden, Liberal Democrat
- Robert Bagnall, The Green party
- Daniel Steel, Labour
- Michael Bagley, Reform
To measure each website, we’ll be using the excellent Eco-grader website. Where each site has its impact measured by over seventeen metrics divided into three main categories:
- Page weight
- UX (User experience) design
- Green hosting
Anthony Mangnall
Overview:
Verdict:
Ecograder rate Anthony Mangnall’s website as ‘E‘ on a sliding scale of A+ to E (E being the worse) for environmental impact.
Impact per 1000 page views >>> |
Equivalent to driving a car how far? |
How many trees required to absorb the eCO² |
Anthony Mangnall .co.uk | 1.5 miles | Three |
Our verdict:
It appears that Mangnall’s site has been supplied with a manual & possibly some tuition from BlueTree on how to do the basics (insert images, add text etc), and as much as the ‘Green hosting’ is a step in the right direction it’s no substitution for having genuine insight into how to produce a website with a smaller carbon footprint.
Caroline Voaden
Overview:
Verdict:
Ecograder rate Caroline Voaden’s website as ‘E‘ on a sliding scale of A+ to E (E being the worse) for environmental impact.
Impact per 1000 page views >>> |
Equivalent to driving a car how far? |
How many trees required to absorb the eCO² |
Caroline Voaden .com | 2.5 miles | Four |
Our verdict:
On the surface of it Voaden’s website should be performing similarly to Mangnall’s. However, the using older formats of images in what is a picture heavy landing page means that it scores far worse.
Another reason is the increase page weight (3.09mb, 33.74% larger than the average site page) – no doubt Voaden is trying to get across her message, but in sustainable website design less is definitely more.
Robert Bagnall
Overview:
Verdict:
Ecograder rate Robert Bagnall’s website as ‘D‘ on a sliding scale of A+ to E (E being the worse) for environmental impact.
Impact per 1000 page views >>> |
Equivalent to driving a car how far? |
How many trees required to absorb the eCO² |
south devon .green party .org.uk | 1.2 miles | Two |
Our verdict:
Robert Bagnall & The Greens have been really sensible from one perspective. Instead of doing a website for each of their candidates, they’ve done one website with a page for each candidate.
Reducing the landing page to 1.44mb (41.61% smaller than the average website page) is also a great idea. Again, the use of older image formats hampers the site – in particular the Hero image (the large image across the top of a page). It’s pixelated because of the incorrect sizing and the use of the JPG image.
Daniel Steel
Overview:
Verdict:
Daniel Steel’s website is paradox. Ecograder rated as ‘B‘ on a sliding scale of A+ to E (E being the worse) for environmental impact.
Impact per 1000 page views >>> |
Equivalent to driving a car how far? |
How many trees required to absorb the eCO² |
Daniel Steel.org | .563 miles | One |
Our verdict:
Again, perceptions can be deceptive. Steel’s website scores relatively well, but could be so much better.
It’s image-heavy, but yet again using older PNG file formats. Then we come to the hosting, Steel’s site is using GoDaddy technology & hosting, which isn’t sustainable. So, one of the main reasons that Ecograder scores it well, is because there isn’t actually much there, so the page weight is only 0.6mb (114.12% smaller than the average web page).
Michael Bagley
Overview:
Verdict:
Unfortunately, Bagley’s website doesn’t like people questioning their eco credentials, so Ecograder couldn’t investigate the Reform candidate’s page. However, we can still extract some information to make an informed opinion on their presence.
We’ve worked out that it equates to 790grams of eCO² per 1000 page views
Impact per 1000 page views >>> |
Equivalent to driving a car how far? |
How many trees required to absorb the eCO² |
Reform Party.uk/ south-devon | 2 miles | Five |
Our verdict:
As much as the Greens made a sensible choice regarding one page per candidate on their website, Reform have shown what can happen if you really don’t pay attention to the details.
Even though Bagley’s website is one page on the Reform site, it scores badly because of the expanse of white space, excessive amount of scripts, image files in old formats and so it goes on.
One reason for excessive amounts of scripts, is because Reform/Bagley use a really poor choice of website builder. On the inspect element of our browser, we reach over two thirds of our way down the code before we even get to see any HTML for images or text.
So, who has the most sustainably designed website for the South Devon Constituency?
In the Totnes / South Devon constituency, where the electorate is more eco-aware than most, you’d like to think that all five candidates (with the possible exception of Reform UK ltd, because they don’t believe in the climate crisis) would put in extra effort to match their political rhetoric.
Sadly not, the feeling we got as research for this post progressed, was that sustainable hosting was either by coincidence or a secondary thought.
What is actually hard to understand, again for an easy win, not one of the candidates had their website designed in the South Devon Constituency, so much for supporting local SME!
If candidates want to proclaim that they will be:
“A champion for our environment, Caroline will be our greenest ever MP”
– Caroline Voaden, Lib Dem election pamplett June ’24.
or
– Anthony Mangnall, website Sept ’23
Then they have to start acting like they mean it. Yes, sustainable web design, building, and hosting make take a touch more effort – but isn’t that a price worth paying?
The people who made this post possible
Thanks for reading our round up of the political websites in the South Devon constituency.
If you like our ethos concerning sustainable web design & green hosting, then why not get in touch, or have a look at our previous work in our portfolio .
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