
After all, with 50 percent margins, there is plenty of room to provide shareholder dividends while still putting an impressive number of trees in the ground. As it grows, the possibility of cashing out becomes weightier. In making their own operation sustainable, Ecosia’s founders foresaw a growing threat: their company’s value. The heavy lifting of operating a search engine is outsourced to a tech colossus.

Ecosia pays for its own servers, maintains a browser plug-in and mobile app, and the rest of the team works on marketing and operations.

Microsoft does not disclose how many engineers work specifically on Bing, but it’s clear from financial reporting around Bing that the company’s budget is several orders of magnitude greater than Ecosia’s.
#DOES ECOSIA PLANT TREES SOFTWARE#
Ecosia employs around 25 software engineers. The answer is that Ecosia can collect the profits per click of a major search engine (minus Microsoft’s cut) while spending next to nothing on the technology to create and maintain such a service. How is it that Ecosia has been merrily pumping out month after month in which it brings in at least double its total cost of operating-unheard of for nearly any business-while its technological backbone only recently became profitable? Trees generate their own emissions too.īing, meanwhile, was $1.3 billion in the red in 2013 and only became profitable in 2016.How many trees can we actually plant on available land? A whole lot.Just planting new trees isn't going to get us out of the mess we're in.Does planting trees really slow climate change? Ask a physicist.Though it is based on Bing, Ecosia anonymizes all user data after holding it for four days (according to Ecosia, this four-day period is for security purposes) and has a written agreement with Microsoft requiring the company to follow the same practice. You search to see if that was, as you suspected, Bill Hader doing the voice of that animated squirrel, and somewhere far away, a tree is put into the ground. One company is trying to do exactly that for our most perpetually present source of ongoing damage to the planet: the internet.Įcosia is a search engine that donates the bulk of its expendable funds to tree-planting organizations around the globe. If only, preposterously, all those minuscule actions were not tiny inflictions on the environment, but tiny improvements to it. But it’s everything, and that is paralyzing. If it were one element of our society or personal lives we’d have to change, that would perhaps be manageable. Your morning coffee, the clothes you wear, every inch you travel by motorized means-it all adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Anyone that downloads the Ecosia extension via this link will also contribute to the university’s total tree count.Climate change is the problem we have few answers for, because every little thing we do makes it worse. This is the unique tracking link for the university. Start planting trees today by downloading the Ecosia extension using the UM link: /MaastrichtUniversity. The choice for a green search engine fits in perfectly with that ambition.ĭo you want to use Ecosia as well on your laptop or mobile phone? To reach that aim UM has created the taskforce Sustainable UM2030 that works on sustainability issues, with the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN as the guiding framework. Its aim is to integrate sustainability in the DNA of the entire organisation by 2030. Maastricht University wants to contribute to a more sustainable future on earth with its education, research and operations. Another option is to click “more” after you have performed your search. Search tags like these can speed up your search.If you prefer Google, then just type #g in the search box. Ecosia uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

#DOES ECOSIA PLANT TREES FULL#
It considers itself a social business, is CO₂-negative and claims to support full financial transparency and protect the privacy of its users. You search the web for free, Ecosia plants treesĮcosia is like any other search engine, with one major difference: Ecosia uses 80% or more of its profits to help non-profit organisations that focus on reforestation. By creating an Ecosia account for UM we contribute to sustainability and keep track of how much CO 2 savings take place collectively at UM level. The idea was launched by University Council students and UM Library and ICT Service Centre embrace the valuable initiative.
