When I started writing about the Democratic presidential primaries, there were eleven candidates running for the nomination. By mid-March, the pool had dwindled down to two: Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. Since I started writing this piece, Sanders suspended his campaign. While that means Biden effectively has secured the nomination, voters still need to be informed on his platform. Studies show that the environment, specifically climate change, is one of the top issues for many Democratic primary voters.

Multiple environmental non-profits have created ‘scorecards’ that make clear just how differently Biden and Sanders approach environmental issues. Intended to be easily digestible, these reports breakdown the specifics of each candidate’s stances and assigns an overall score or grade. But how useful are these scorecards to the environmentally minded voter? I decided to explore this question by examining focus, methodology, and consistency of four scorecards published by four well-known environmental organizations: Center for Biological Diversity, the Sunrise Movement, 350 Action, and Greenpeace.

The focus of the organization producing the scorecard impacts the issues included in the scorecard. 350 Action, a nonprofit focused on climate action, assessed the candidates on four climate-related categories. Greenpeace also kept a narrow focus on climate policy. The Sunrise Movement was even more specific by only evaluating Biden and Sanders on their approach to the Green New Deal. Taking a wider approach, the Center for Biological Diversity looked more broadly at environmental issues, including wildlife, public lands, and environmental justice, in addition to climate change. These different approaches have a lot to offer, but the Center for Biological Diversity offers the best overview of multiple current environmental issues. If you want more specifics on climate policy, the Sunrise Movement breaks down everything and anything related to the Green New Deal.

The scorecards differ in their methodology too. Assessments include letter grades (A, B, C, etc.), points, and check marks. Each are simple enough to get their point across, but how are the organizations coming up with their scores?

While they back up their statements with research, I did not find a concrete grading rubric for the scorecards. This makes it hard to know why a candidate got a C instead of a C+ for their stance on fracking, for example. This may feel like an small detail, but it does ultimately influence how meaningful the final scores are, so readers should keep this in mind.

If you want more information than the final scores, each organization backs up their grades with evidence pulled from candidates’ websites, speeches, tweets, past legislative initiatives and voting records. The Sunrise Movement scorecard was especially research intensive. Their scorecard has four main categories, sub-categories within those, and even more sub-sub-categories. It scores candidates on 61 different topics relating to the Green New Deal on a scale that adds up to 200 potential points. More information for each score can be found by simply clicking on it, although like the other organizations there is little explanation for why they assigned the number of points they did.

Despite these differences in scope and methodology, all four scorecards come to similar conclusions. Bernie Sanders surpassed Joe Biden on each scorecard. Green Peace gave Sanders  94/100 (an A) while Biden received 72/100 (a C-). This trend continues for each organization with the exception of the Sunrise Movement scorecard where Biden scored only 75/200, or an F-. This may not be too surprising though, because Sunrise is a youth-led organization. In a Yahoo! News survey, only 18% of 18-29 year olds ranked Biden as “very favorable” compared to a 41% ranking for Bernie. For all the variations in topics, methodology, and grading criteria, these four environmental organizations all came to a consensus that Bernie Sanders is the most environmentally progressive candidate.

Regardless of the final conclusions, none of these scorecards are the be-all-end-all source for the environmental stances of the candidate. By focusing on the heavily displayed conclusions, readers may miss the supporting evidence found in external links and separate webpages. For example, in the 350 Action scorecard, you wouldn’t know that Sanders has already taken action to open federal investigations on the fossil fuel industry unless you read the “Sources and Research” document at the bottom of the page. Ultimately, these types of scorecards are valuable overviews that supplement readers in their own research on politicians. It may seem pointless to research the only candidate left in the race, but it’s important to know the facts and keep politicians accountable, whether you voted for them or not. To learn more details about Biden’ environmental past, present, and future, I suggest you dig deeper into his online platforms, voting records, and campaign finances.