Ecosia is a search engine that aggregates search results from multiple other search engines. The ad revenue from our searches funds the planting of trees worldwide. With over 200 million trees planted so far, Ecosia have learned to be fully transparent about their projects, and financials which are available right on that website. Set it as your default search engine, and start planting trees. They also recently released a Chromium based browser if that’s your thing - TechCrunch article for reference.
they’ve added an LLM chatbot recently, so I’m sure the energy required to run the queries will offset all the trees they’ve planted so far in about 4 days.
What’s stopping me? The fact that they need me to generate ad revenue to fund those trees, and I’d rather not be advertised to.
Fair enough. I was using Google + uBlock Origin. I tolerate the ads now on Ecosia and I actually click them when it’s what I was searching for.
They make less money, if more people use it with ad blocker, since they have to pay Microsoft for search results but in turn get most of ad revenue (ads need to be clicked)
I guess most people here use ad blocker
They partner with multiple search providers, not just MS. And yes ad-blockers, but I’ve disabled it for ecosia.org
I used them for years.
Kagi search results have been much better for me so I recently switched.
Ecosia is just another way to greenwashing a bussiness
They’re a non-profit, they plant trees, and they’re carbon negative. So what are they green-washing?
Better to stop planting trees altogether then?
I cannot speak to this search provider however we know that tree planting alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially huge projects.
I’ve read the US has more trees today than 200 years ago.
Sorry, no source, it’s been probably 20 years since I read it in a science mag.
Just looking at pics from the US west back then vs today is pretty staggering.
And the forest service has prevented fires from containing forests for going on 100 years… A problem in its own right (is a major cause of the larger wildfires we see today, which they we warned about in the 80’s by one of their lead researchers).
OK posting here to address the skepticism, which I completely understand and have been through. Here are some articles that came up when simply searching “is ecosia legit”: Utopia “Ecosia is certainly legit. It’s above board”, Snopes “Ecosia makes money through advertisements on its search engine. While a portion of that money is used to fund the operational costs of the business, about 80% of its surplus revenue is donated to environmental organizations and tree-planting projects around the world.”, GoodGoodGood, TechJunkie and there’s plenty more
The ad revenue from our searches funds the planting of trees worldwide.
I call that BS. As Mr Oliver once explained, if all companies were to plant the trees they promise, this planet wouldn’t be enough for so many trees.
I was really skeptical at first, but they’re legit. It’s a non-profit that’s been around since 2009, based in Berlin. Have a look at their blog, you’ll find project updates, the financials are broken down by expenditure and much more. Finally they’re getting some spotlight with this recent TechCrunch article and their big efforts on Social. What really hooked me in is that they signed a legal contract binding them to the not-for-profit purpose forever - more on this. Edit: about Mr. Oliver (love this guy) he is absolutely correct, but he is referring to for-profit companies that pollute and then plant some trees to pretend like they give a damn. Ecosia is a not-for-profit whose purpose is to plant with a purpose, meaning they reconnect forest patches that have been split, they return livelihood and wildlife to areas that have gone through droughts and seen increased poverty etc…
You should probably not call all reforestation as bullshit projects just based on a John Oliver video.
There is this interesting blog post on Ecosia :
I understand this is just a blog but there is good sources in there. Ecosia looks like a serious initiative and the fact that they got a B corp rating in Germany is impressive.
That assumes all the trees survive. A lot of them apparently don’t.
No such assumption is made. Ecosia is clear when an entire project fails, and takes into account tree survival rates when they claim to have planted over 200 million trees. It’s all clarified on their website. Regardless of all of that, they take all ad-revenue to reforest and I’d say that’s a better deal than Google or MS.
After switching to Kagi, I see no reason to return to an ad-supported search engine.
Fair words make me look to my purse (English proverb).
Didn’t they get found out for being a bunch of frauds?
Any source for that or is it just preemptive cynicism?
Huh? Not that I know of. They’re going strong, taking on more projects around the world and are pretty transparent about what they do - they had an article about how / why one of their projects failed which i read but can’t find right now.
Quote and sauce or it did not happen …
