I recently stumbled across an absolute gem called Ecosia! Essentially, it is a search engine with a twist. Each time you click on an advertised search result, the money generated from these ads is used to plant trees. Trees are planted across the world in areas that have previously succumbed to deforestation to restore the natural habitat. And it gets better – Ecosia covers emissions generated from running their search engine by using renewable energy. They have their own solar farm to supply the required energy.
Once I discovered Ecosia, I delved into their website to understand how they operated. I was impressed to see that Ecosia publishes their financial reports monthly on their website to provide transparency around expenditure so search users can be confident funds are being spent appropriately. They also have a fantastic blog with a range of videos and articles on all things trees. I recommend it!
I decided to give it a go, and downloaded the app on my phone. It took less than a minute and I was ready to make my first search. I have used Ecosia for a week now, and I love it. It is functional, provides the same level of search results in comparison to Google, and also intuitively corrects typos in the search field. I added Ecosia to the Chrome browser on my desktop with the same great results. The extension is also available for the Edge and Firefox browsers. As you can see from the image below, the layout is very similar to other search engines.
Changing your search engine to Ecosia is a simple way to make your own ‘Local Impact’ from the comfort of your loungeroom!
Let me know your experiences using Ecosia in the comments below.
Enter your email address below to get new content delivered directly to your inbox!
Local Impact Sustainability 