Ecosia, The Search Engine that Plants trees
Ten years ago, Christian Kroll founded the Ecosia search engine as an alternative to Google. Its mission statement was simple: use its profits to plant trees — millions of them.
The idea is without a doubt revolutionary. A search engine whose servers run on 100% renewable energy, from its own solar power plant. All data is anonymous (check privacy policy) and is deleted every week and 80% of the income obtained is used to plant a tree. It’s about Ecosia.
Is Ecosia legit?
The first question came in mind that is Ecosia fake or legit? The answer is it’s 100% legit. You may not have heard of the Ecosia search engine, but it plays a major role in the reforestation project. Like Google, it creates revenue from advert clicks on its search pages, with around half of it spent on planting. Ecosia, which uses Microsoft’s Bing for its search results, says one search generates on average €0.005 (just over half a US cent) — not much, however approximately 45 searches pay for the planting of one tree. So far it has financed over 105 million trees planted worldwide across 22 projects and 17 countries, from Brazil to Burkina Faso.
Ecosia published its monthly financial reports and tree planting receipts. These reports show exactly how much money they made from searches and what percentage of our revenue went towards trees. You can see the Ecosia financial reports here.
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A decade in, Ecosia maintains its long-term goal to plant 1 billion trees and is beginning to diversify its offerings. It also has grander plans to reform what it means to be a business in the 21st century. So can we click our way out of a crisis?
The idea came from the mind of sociologist Christian Kroll and he makes it clear on his website: “We are not interested in your data; we are interested in trees ”. It has already planted more than 105 million trees since it was founded back in 2009 and every 0.8 seconds it plants a new one. Thanks to this, it has managed to eliminate almost 1,800 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
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Ecosia points out that it’s not just about planting trees, as the One Billion Trees initiative suggests. “Planting blindly, without taking into account the ecosystems of the region could harm the environment more than it helps. However, most importantly, mass planting cannot guarantee that the trees survive long enough to have a significant impact. “
Trees absorb carbon dioxide and tree planting has been identified as one way to fight against climate change. One recent report estimated that planting one trillion trees could remove two-thirds of all carbon emitted by human activity since the industrial revolution (some 205 billion tons) from the atmosphere — although some have questioned that figure. Ecosia claims that one search on its platform will remove one KG of carbon from the atmosphere.
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According to Ecosia, the planted species must also generate products and income for local communities who must obtain resources from the trees to care for them in the long term. This will avoid introducing non-indigenous tree monocultures that have caused damage in the past.
Ecosia has planted most of its trees in Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Brazil. In terms of future goals, Ecosia plans to continue expanding its solar energy market and further optimize the information to search engine users about its environmental impact.
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Ecosia’s salubrious approach to planting trees is not its only contribution to sustainability; it’s also adding to the debate about what a modern business can and should be in the 21st century.
Click here to download Ecosia App for Andriod mobile.
Click here to search from Ecosia Search Engine.
IS Ecosia safe?
