The Groundbreakers puts an inspiring initiative, product or company in the spotlight every month. By sharing knowledge and inspiration, we want to stimulate sustainable developments and hope to contribute to the greening of business. This time we would like to highlight Ecosia. A green search engine that plants a new tree in a deforested area with every 45 searches.

154 million trees

During his world trip, founder Christian Kroll was confronted with the dire problem of deforestation. Upon returning to Berlin, he decided to take matters into his own hands, combining his expertise in search engines and passion for social impact to found Ecosia.org. Since 2009, Ecosia has more than 15 million users and a whopping 80% of the revenue generated from these searches goes towards planting trees. As a result, 154 million trees have already been planted around the world! Ecosia positions itself as a green web-based company that puts the earth and its population above all else. They target areas where many tree species are on the verge of extinction,  then consider the species endemic to the areas and choose trees that will provide income for the population.

Social impact

It is not just about planting trees, but also about people, and especially the people who live in these areas. The social impact of Ecosia's projects is important, because although they (and most users) live outside these communities, we all naturally benefit from the positive climate impact of trees. Setting up the planting organization in a deforested area requires an enormous amount of networks, capabilities and legal infrastructure. In their projects, Ecosia supports local organizations that already work on site and have specific knowledge of reforestation in the area in question.

200% renewable energy

At Ecosia, 100% of profits go to climate action, but according to them, frontrunners and pioneers cannot stop there. That is why as an organization they opt for 200% renewable energy. They do this through their own solar power plants, which produce twice as much sustainable energy than is needed to offset all searches. This leads to more renewable energy sources and fewer fossil fuels in the electricity grid.

At The Groundbreakers we also strive for climate-positive business operations and by using Ecosia, your positive impact increases with every search result. Switch to the green search engine? Then go to the website.