Switch Now to Ecosia and Help to Save the Planet!
The boss of Ecosia says he wants “to make the world a greener, better place” – and he means it! Most of the profits of Ecosia are used to plant trees around the world. WOW!
Christian Kroll, the founder, adds “I also want to prove that there is a more ethical alternative to the kind of greedy capitalism that is coming close to destroying the planet.”
WOW again!
What Is Ecosia?
Ecosia is an internet search engine, just like Google. Like Google, they make money from advertising. You know the adverts you see when you search on Google? Well, Google and Ecosia earn money every time someone clicks on those ads.
Ecosia then donates 80% of the profits it makes to tree-planting charities. It has funded over 100 million trees so far!
And on average, it takes 45 clicks to raise the money to plant 1 tree, so that’s a LOT of searches!
How Big (and Profitable) is Ecosia?
Founded in 2009, it has 15 million users. This is tiny compared to Google, but it’s growing fast.
Size isn’t the only difference.
The founders of Google – Larry Page and Sergey Brin – are now billionaires. Page bought a super-yacht for $45 million in 2011.
But Kroll says he’ll never buy a super-yacht. “While they have big yachts, I have an inflatable dinghy that I take to lakes. Ego consumption is not appropriate in a world where there’s climate change.”
In fact, he probably wouldn’t be able to buy one even if he wanted to. He put two legally binding restrictions on the business – shareholders and staff cannot personally sell shares or take profits outside of the company. (WOW again).
Today Ecosia employs 70 people. Personally, I really like the fact that (because so much of their profits are put into planting trees), every time you do a search on Ecosia, you help to remove 1kg (about 2 pounds) of CO2 from the air. Isn’t that just wonderful?
Here’s what makes them different:-
Is It Difficult to Compete with Google?
Yes, definitely. Their search engine uses Microsoft’s Bing’s technology. But Google is the default search engine for Android phones and for Chrome – and most people don’t change the default. Google also spends billions of dollars a year to be the default search for Apple devices. How can you compete with that?
Capitalism
Kroll hopes that regulators will try to loosen Google’s grip. But he also hopes that capitalism can change for the better. He says our current system is not healthy, and that we need to re-think the role of business.
He’s right of course. Rampant consumerism fuelled by advertising, money buying legislation that protects large companies, constant degradation and mis-use of land, corporations viewing the planet as one big place to extract and destroy, no protection for the poor or for animals……. It’s all driven by profit-at-any-cost capitalism.
So, I encourage you to change from your current search engine (which is probably Google) to Ecosia. Just go to ecosia.org and choose it as your default browser. Thank you!
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What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Warm regards,
P.S. Don’t forget to download your free climate change report here!
Hi Clare,
I like your article about Ecosiaand may look to change as I like their philosophy & their servers running on renewable energy.
I’m slightly more ambivalent on the tree planting. I’ve read somewhere that the activity of planting trees releases carbon/CO2 and it is a long time before the mature tree compensates for that. I’ll need to research that more!!!
Keep your interesting eco new coming.
Love
Pat x
Thanks Pat – yes, I love their philosophy too! Regarding tree planting, I fully appreciate your comments.
Regarding emissions while planting trees, well, a great deal depends upon how exactly they’re planted. Ecosia plants trees mostly in disadvantaged areas, by hand, by people (mostly women) who are happy to have a job.
Bringing water for the trees may indeed increase emissions, but again, this is not mass irrigation with laying of pipes etc.
You are absolutely right about the carbon absorption taking a long time to happen – the trees need to mature and grow, and that takes time. However, they are planted on land that has already been degraded. If left alone, there would be huge soil erosion – and soil is crucial in the fight against climate change.
There are many, many things that we can do to help slow climate change. Project Drawdown (https://www.ecofriendlylink.com/blog/drawdown-review-climate-solutions/) lists many. But some of them are difficult to achieve in the short term – stopping deforestation in the Amazon, for example, would be a massive help, but there are many political and other obstacles to that. At least with planting trees, you can immediately see progress (how many trees are planted). It’s nice to be able to say that every search you do on Ecosia helps to remove carbon from the atmosphere!
Other solutions include manufacturing giant “fans” to be placed in open spaces like deserts that “suck” CO2 out of the air. But their manufacturing emissions are large, plus they need energy to operate. Also, mechanical solutions like these make it easier for large, polluting companies to continue polluting while saying, we’ll suck it all out. We need to change behaviour in order to protect the planet.
Is planting trees the perfect solution? No. No one solution is. But it’s a huge step in the right direction.
And as the saying goes “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The 2nd best time is now”.