Learn more about this special search engine. Here, with every search, you know which results are the most environmentally friendly.
Let’s start with the introductions. Although it is now 12 years old, it is possible that many of you have not yet heard of this project. ECOSIA is a search engine like many others that exist on the internet. The difference? Part of the profits goes to environmental protection.
Just like all other search engines you know, ECOSIA generates profits through the ads it advertises. Every time you click on an ad, you are contributing to generate money. The difference to other search engines is that ECOSIA uses these profits to support climate action projects.
More specifically, after paying the operating costs inherent to ECOSIA’s operation, the profits generated are distributed in two major areas: 20% are allocated to “green investments” (such as renewable energy projects, regenerative agriculture, and grassroots activism), and the remaining and major 80% are applied to support tree-planting programs.
And you want to know the best? Because of its transparency policy, every month you can access financial reports that reveal how much money was raised, how many tree plantations were financed, and where the rest of the money was invested.
On the search engine’s home page you can also track how many trees have already been planted by ECOSIA. Although it is constantly being updated, this number does not reflect the plantations carried out at the current time, since it only counts the trees that have survived after 3 years since their planting.
“But do you plant trees every day?” The answer is, of course, no. ECOSIA follows a very meticulous selection process, seeking to ensure that the non-profit organizations and projects it supports follow important criteria, such as the trees being planted by local people who can continue the conservation of these plantations and who value the benefit of these plantations for their community, in order to ensure the long-term success of the project. As ECOSIA itself explains on its website, “it takes longer, but that’s what makes it not greenwashing.”
But there is more. The ECOSIA application is not only concerned with protecting the environment. At the same time they also seek to protect the privacy of their users by ensuring that the searches they make are encrypted, withouth storing their memory. This does not mean that you stop getting ads, which is exactly where the profit of the application comes from, just like any other search engine. It just means that at ECOSIA, since they don’t store information about your technological footprint, the ads you receive are less personalized.
If all this were not enough to make you a fan of this search engine, ECOSIA has one more asset to help you follow a sustainable life. When you search for companies or brands on this search engine, ECOSIA helps you to make greener choices by showing you, through an icon that appears on the search page next to the site you want to consult, which companies help the environment more or less. If the company appears with the symbol of a green leaf, then you are making a great choice, but if the icon of a factory blowing smoke appears, then the choice is not the best for the environment.
Are you convinced? We explain what you have to do: just search for ecosia.org and make this search engine the main search page on your computer. You can also install the application on your phone, either iOS or Android system. Next, and if you want, just spread the word about how it is so easy, in an action that we do daily and for free, to help reduce our ecological footprint.
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