How to plant trees with your internet searches

As a tree and nature lover, I couldn’t miss this beautiful project, which I will now tell you about.

You would like to do something to reduce pollution, make our planet greener and take actions against climate change, but do not want to struggle, right? Do you know that you can help make this world a better place for everyone planting trees, sitting comfortably on your chair, just with a click of your finger and without spending a cent?

Yes, you understood correctly. You can do it thanks to Ecosia.

Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees thanks to its advertising revenue. It is a social business run by a small international team of people united by the same passion, whose headquarters is in Berlin, Germany. Its goal is to contribute to the environmental, social and economic sustainability of our planet, placing people, diversity, justice, and equal opportunities before profit.

It was founded in 2009 by Christian Kroll: after studying business administration, he decided to travel the world for some inspiration in order to create a business with a positive social impact. After visiting India, Thailand, and Nepal, he became aware of the connection between globalization and climate change, through reforestation projects in Argentina and Brazil.

Thanks to Ecosia, more than 25 million trees have been planted until today, about one per second, investing more than 6 million euros, through the research of 7 million active users!

This project is carried out in total transparency, indeed every month the business reports and the planting partner receipts are published online, so it is easy to keep an eye on it, trust it and realize the work done so far.

To start using Ecosia just download the free extension for your browser, set it as your default search engine and use it for your daily searches on the internet. It can be installed on desktop computers, laptops, but also on smartphones (iOS and Android).

When you search something on the Internet through Ecosia, you will see a couple of listings, the EcoAds, above the other results: these are ads offered by Bing that pays for clicks and views. This is where Ecosia’s revenue comes from, and at least 80% of its monthly profits will be used for reforestation projects in Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Peru, Indonesia, Morocco, Brazil, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Tanzania and many other countries.

The counter that appears in the top right corner of your homepage represents the number of searches you have made. Taking into account that you don’t always click on the ads, on average 40 searches are needed to finance a tree. Even if you never click on the ads, you still contribute by increasing the number of users and making the project relevant to advertisers.

For example, I did 552 searches so far, so I helped to plant about 14 trees!

Why choose to plant trees for a good cause?

A tree is for everyone. By planting trees we can have many advantages and do something good for the people and our planet, more than you can imagine. Trees help:

• mitigate climate change because they are the most efficient carbon dioxide absorbers
• stop desertification, restarting water cycles in arid lands
• protect people, biodiversity, and the life of entire habitats, especially endangered animals
• make a place safe, avoiding erosion of lands, landslides, floods
• offer nourishment to poor communities thanks to the fruits that can be consumed and sold, improving the local economy. With a salary coming from reforestation and the cultivation of a retrained area, a disadvantaged family can finally have enough money to send children to school, buy medicines and then have the chance to take care of itself. We should never forget that poverty is a problem that falls on everyone and can even lead to migrations and wars.

In November 2014, after having financed the millionth tree, Ecosia announced it wants to plant one billion trees by 2020! To succeed, it needs everyone’s help! Since donations are not accepted, the only way to support this cause is to talk about it and to make this project known everywhere.

Let the searches begin! ?

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