It seems that sometimes simplicity is the answer. A simple solution to saving the planet? Change the way you search the internet.
Last week I discovered Ecosia, a search engine that uses the ad revenue to plant trees. It works as an extension to your existing browser (I use chrome and safari) and once installed you can click the little globe icon on your browser bar and search away.
So far they’ve planted nearly 12 million trees in places including Madagascar, Peru, Burkina Faso, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Morocco and Brazil. They also invest 80% of their profits each month to reforestation projects.
I love their transparency ethos too, and you can head to their website where they post their full financial statements.
So how does it really work?
Last year Google (.com) made $78.4 BILLION from ad revenue alone. So, Ecosia figured, if just ONE percent of those searches went through their search engine then they could raise enough to plant 1.2 million trees every day.
That’s the equivalent of reforesting an area the size of 1,200 football pitches.
The search engine information comes from Bing and Yahoo, so I’ll be honest, you don’t always get the same results (or as good) as you would from google but there is an option to switch to google search if you want and there’s also a filter that allows you to search amazon, wikipedia and youtube too so actually, it’s pretty useful.
The aim of Ecosia is to plant 1 billion trees by 2020 and it’s crazy to think how easy it is to be involved in that by just searching the internet – something we all do, every day.
I’ve never heard of this search engine before but what an amazing initiative x
I read about this search engine a week or two ago and being someone who is trying to be more cautious of what i am doing to the environment this is great!
Such a good read this need to more I do gets you thinking too.
I have to admit I’ve not heard of Ecosia before, but how amazing that they use their ad revenue to plant trees, I’ll have to try to remember to use them in future.
I’ve never heard of this either but I love the idea behind it, saving the planet is SO important! I’ll look it up now!
I’ve never heard of Ecosia…but what a fantastic idea and such a simple change for people to make to help 🙂
That’s such a good idea, and to be honest something sites like Google should be doing, even just 1% of what they’re making would make such a difference x
It sounds like a brilliant tool, every little helps doesn’t it!? I totally agree with Rhian that Google should be donating at least a percentage of their revenue to causes like this as well.
I’ve not heard of Ecosia before! I will make sure that I will try and use it, it’s such a good idea 🙂
im going to be honest ive never heard of this before but its very interesting to read about
Looks like I’ll be downloading a new search engine!
Oh my goodness, what a great idea!
I will definitely be looking into this new search engine 🙂
Dani x
I’ve never heard of this search engine before, what an incredible idea!
This is an amazing idea which i would love to support too!
I am joining the club, I’ve never heard of Ecosia either. Sounds like such a great initiative!
I would love to support Ecosia. I’ve never heard of them before but what they are doing and planting so many trees is a great incentive we should all get on board with and support.
I’ve never heard of Ecosia but after reading this I’ll definitely have a go. Such a great initiative.
I wonder how it compares to what google.org donates – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google.org . Giving it a go 🙂