What is Ecosia? We explain the "search engine for trees"

A large proportion of all searches are conducted via Google. Yet there are many alternatives, some even with an ecological character, such as Ecosia. We introduce the green search engine.

Green side effect of the search: with Ecosia, users can care for growing forests.

The knowledge of this world is conveyed primarily via search engines. Ecosia follows a very special approach.

What is Ecosia and what is behind it?

Ecosia basically works like any common search engine. Based on algorithms, the user is shown the (supposedly) most relevant results. However, the special feature takes place in the background:

• At least 80 percent of the surplus profit generated by advertising flows into projects for the preservation and creation of forests.
• This happens in very different regions of the world, for example in Indonesia and in African countries. Regions in which the forest population is particularly at risk are the focus. Forests in which the loss is at least 70 percent are considered endangered.
• Ecosia has formulated the goal of cracking the mark of one billion planted trees by 2020. According to the operators, a new tree is planted every 1.1 seconds; the more people use Ecosia, the faster this process becomes.

With an estimated seven million users, the search engine from Berlin is significantly smaller than Google or even Bing or Yahoo, but also no longer completely unknown. In addition to the web version, which you can find at ecosia.org, there is Ecosia as an app for iOS and Android.