Today, our reliance on the Internet is greater than ever before, and is sure to continue to grow in the years to come. Remote work has become more common, as has online school, gaming, streaming, and networking.
With so much time spent on the computer, why not use the opportunity to support sustainability initiatives? Ecosia, a search engine founded in late 2009, might be able to help.
Ecosia donates approximately 80% of its profits to organizations with a focus on reforestation, i.e., planting trees. That means every time you use Ecosia – whether for research, or just for fun – you are helping to plant more trees in the areas that need it the most. A full list of where Ecosia helps to plant trees can be found here.
Most importantly, with these tree-planting projects comes a tangible, real-world impact. From 2009 – 2020, Ecosia helped to plant 100 million trees around the globe. This equates to approximately 50,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) being sequestered from Earth’s atmosphere each month. Turns out it is easy being green.
In all seriousness, Ecosia’s impact has grown significantly over time. With the revenue Ecosia makes from advertising, an average of 75 trees can be planted per minute. As one might imagine, this total adds up quite quickly. 4,500 trees every hour, 108,000 trees every day, 3,240,000 in a 30-day period, and nearly 40 million trees in a year.
Using Ecosia should not be used as a “crutch” to stop doing other regenerative things. However, it’s certainly a small thing that can be done which makes a positive impact on our world, our climate, and our future.
Written By Dax Emerson, Class of 2021
Photo Credits: Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash