That’s why we’ve made this blog post, to find out the truth about whether Ecosia is an honest environmental company or just another greenwashing scam. Here at Cariki, we believe that sustainable businesses are essential for helping move towards a green future. Go get started at to make Ecosia your default search engine.Is Ecosia Real or Fake? An honest review of Search Engine EcosiaĮcosia, the search engine that plants trees for every search you make. So that’s us! It’s easy to make the switch. We tell you about our planting methods, about why we steer clear of monocultures, about why it's so important to work with local communities, about climate justice, activism, and so, so much more. Once they’re in the ground, we continue to work with these partners, using satellite tech and field visits, to ensure our trees survive.Īnd finally, to bring you all along on this adventure, we publish updates about our projects almost every day (check out our tree planting updates on youtube, for instance). Next, our tree-planting experts sought out amazing local partners who do the hard work of growing, nurturing and planting trees in these areas. This makes it a highly impactful conservation area. A biodiversity hotspot has a lot of biodiversity while also being at risk for destruction. That led us to focus on vulnerable biodiversity hotspots, bird migration routes, and environmental crisis zones. Our trees remove thousands of tons of CO2 out of the air every day.īut they don’t just remove carbon: they protect wildlife and support farmers who are dealing with ever warmer and ever drier climates.īut where does Ecosia plant trees? And what does planting millions of trees actually look like?įirst, we figured out where trees are most urgently needed. We're in it for the trees, not your data. That’s why Ecosia has become one of the most privacy-friendly search engines out there – which means we don't do creepy things like selling your data to advertisers and or creating a personal profile of you. We might be an open book, but you shouldn’t be. And to be completely transparent, we publish monthly financial reports that tell you exactly how much money we made from your searches, and how we spent it. So there’s no way for us to ever sell Ecosia or take money out of the company. So a few years ago, Ecosia's founder and CEO, Christian Kroll, signed an irreversible contract that requires us to stay true to our purpose. We also know that trust has to be earned. So no matter what you search for, you are fighting global warming by removing CO2 from the air. Being 200% renewable means that every Ecosia search is crowding out dirty energy from the grid. That way, we're not just producing enough energy to power all of your searches with renewables - we are producing twice as much. Speaking of good decisions: We’ve built our own solar panels. To help you make better decisions, we’ve added a little green leaf next to planet-friendly organizations, and a little coal icon next to the world's most destructive companies. Ecosia’s features, privacy policy, and solar panels Our search engine now serves millions of people from almost every country in the world, every day.īut our not-for-profit business model is not the only thing that makes Ecosia a somewhat unusual search engine. The remaining 80% goes towards planting and protecting trees around the world.īy using our profits for the planet instead of ourselves, we’ve been able to plant over 120 million trees, and counting. We invest 20% in renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, and grassroots activism.

Everything else, so all of Ecosia's profits, go towards climate action. This includes things like improving the search results and covering our rent.

That’s how Ecosia makes money.īut instead of wasting this advertising revenue on building a private airport or finding new ways to avoid taxes, Ecosia uses it to fight climate change and environmental injustice. Like other search engines, we display ads alongside your search results. We’ve spent the last decade building a search engine called Ecosia.

Is Ecosia a virus? Are Ecosia’s tree-planting projects legit? Does Ecosia produce renewable energy? Is my private data safe with you? Who is Christian Kroll? Without knowing how Ecosia works, this may sound too good to be true. Our 15 million users have planted over 120 million trees, for free.

Does ecosia plant trees