At Techzim we rarely get a chance to speak about global warming or deforestation, or all the potential catastrophes that might befall us, as this rarely ties in with what we actually focus on. I was glad when I stumbled upon Ecosia; a search engine that plants trees based on searches that you perform using the engine.
How it works?
The whole equation is really simple.
A user searches the web using Ecosia > Search ads generate income for Ecosia > Ecosia uses this income to plant trees. Ecosia claims to have planted over 35 million trees in countries such as Spain, Morocco, Tanzania, Indonesia, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Brazil, Peru, Nicaragua and most recently Burkina Faso.
The search engine claims to have more than 7 million active users and it takes about 45 searches by each user to finance the planting of a single tree. Ecosia states on their blog:
We know that Ecosia earns an average of 0.5 cents (EUR) per search. It costs our tree planting partners about 0.22 EUR to plant a tree. 22 cents divided by 0.5 cents makes about 45 searches until we can plant one new tree. Depending on clicks on ads and how much search ad revenue these generate for Ecosia, it may take a lot less searches though. Sounds very complicated? Try it like this: At the moment we fund the planting of a new tree every 2 seconds. Impressive, right?
For those with ad blockers using Ecosia is not a problem either as the higher the number of users = the more relevant the search engine becomes to advertisers.
Transparency
You may have some questions as to whether or not you can trust Ecosia and if this search engine is genuinely putting their money where their mouths are. Well, Ecosia also upload their financial reports on a monthly basis so that anyone with doubts can take a look for themselves.
Ecosia is on mobile too
Ecosia is available on both desktop and mobile. You can download the mobile applications for Ecosia Search Engine if you are prepared to go all in;
Download Ecosia Search Engine for iOS
Download Ecosia Search Engine for Android
If you are concerned about reforestation and the impact it has on our planet this is a great way to contribute in the fight against it and you don’t even have to leave your home or office. Kinda cool if you ask me.
Update 2/12/2019: I came across an extremely informative video on Ecosia and thought attaching it on the post would be helpful:
Is Ecosia legit?
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One response
a link to the search engine would have been helpful