1612: Meet Ecosia - The Search Engine That Plants Trees

The "search engine wars" are heating up. But Google, Yahoo, and Bing are not the only players in the game. One of the fastest-growing search engines in the U.S. is Ecosia (Ecosia.org). Ecosia is an ethical tech and not-for-profit search engine that aims to tackle the climate crisis by planting and protecting trees around the world.

As a certified B-Corp, Ecosia joins the ranks of companies like Patagonia, Ben & Jerrys, and Allbirds, who have met the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance. This "eco-friendly" alternative to other search engines can track the number of trees they are planting with their searches, which helps reduce CO2 and the impact of climate change.

The company is founded on green principles and has built solar farms that produce enough renewable energy to power its searches twice over. The excess actively removes dirty energy from the grid. Ecosia is also currently the largest financier of native tree restoration in the world.

Ecosia is now the fifth-largest search engine in the U.S. and is rapidly adding new users and planting trees. For every 45 searches, Ecosia plants a tree, and it has now planted over 120 million trees across 9,000 planting sites worldwide.

Ruby Au (Head of Ecosia North America) shares the story behind Ecosia.