Reddit, Pinterest and Alibaba are among the most carbon-polluting websites on the web, a new study found. Also named among the resources with very high greenhouse gas emissions are the gaming portal Nintendo, the sports channel ESPN and the fashion chain Uniqlo.

A report published by energy comparison platform uSwitch calculated the carbon footprint of 200 of the most popular websites, taking into account many factors that affect a site’s energy efficiency, from hosting to font size, images, videos and colors. The key indicator was, of course, the energy sources from which a particular cloud, a telecommunications network, operates. If a large data center runs on fossil fuels, naturally, it gets into a similar anti-rating.

Of the hundreds of sites surveyed, Reddit took first place in terms of pollution: in just one visit and 69 clicks, the site emits an estimated 13,05 grams of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to driving 5 kilometers by car. Other high-emission sites include Pinterest (about 12,43 grams of CO₂ per average visit) and Nintendo Game Portal (11,43 grams). Weather forecast website Accuweather, sports platform ESPN, lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret, fashion chain Uniqlo, online electronics and gadget store Banggood and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba were also among the top ten resources with the highest carbon footprint.

At the same time, Wikipedia has become the “cleanest” popular resource on the Internet – it produces 0,04 grams of carbon dioxide per visit. In second place in terms of environmental friendliness and energy efficiency is the professional social network LinkedIn, followed by the fashion giant H&M. Online payment system PayPal, web publisher WordPress and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase also made it to the top XNUMX according to uSwitch ratings.

The analysis showed that different digital industries have different impacts on the planet. For example, those used to work remotely tend to be more sustainable in terms of their carbon footprint than industries like fashion and beauty.

For example, the file-sharing platform DropBox, with its 7,35 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per visit, leads among the resources used to work from home. But it is still much lower than the Urban Decay brand of cosmetics (11,29 grams). And Basecamp, which makes project management and internal communications easier, has a surprisingly low carbon footprint of just 0,23 grams.

In the automotive industry, Mazda topped the list of most polluting websites. And in the social media arena, instant messaging app Viber topped the anti-ranking with 13 grams of carbon per use.