Christian Kroll, a business major from Wittenberg, Germany, decided to put his degree to good use in 2009 by creating the search engine Ecosia. Ecosia takes the advertisement revenue collected when users search for information and uses the income to plant trees, so far having planted over 13 million trees worldwide. 

Ecosia was an idea Kroll had while taking time to study the importance of trees all around the world. Trees are “nature’s high-impact home remedy” as stated on the website. Ecosystems are dependent on the existence of trees; in fact, forests are home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, protecting and sheltering a variety of species. Along with this, trees are the most cost-friendly way to clean up the environment, providing oxygen to the atmosphere and filtering out pollutants and gasses. The planting of trees can provide food to famished populations, providing food and materials that is solely depended on by 1.6 billion people across the world and help in the prevention of droughts. The roots of a tree “act like a sponge” keeping ground moisture consistent and helping to maintain a steady water cycle.  

Ecosia helps to prevent the devastating effects caused by deforestation, such as droughts, soil erosion, famine, habitual destruction, etc. by creating a search engine designed to reforest the world. When people search with Ecosia, a small icon in the top right beside the search bar calculates the number of searches that have been made. 

In order to plant one tree, one must have a total of 45 searches on the site. The functions of the search engine are similar to that of Google; in fact, the engine itself can be attached to a user’s Chrome browser in order to make it their default search engine, which is a process further explained by the photos provided. Once Ecosia has been made the default browser, it will automatically pull up when the browser is opened.  

Ecosia has made phenomenal progress since its start nearly 6 years ago and has been successful in the planting of over 13 million trees. Though the results thus far are impressive, Ecosia claims to have an even higher goal to reach — having one billion trees planted by the year 2020! A quick search can lead to a vital contribution, eventually helping to reforest the world and fight against the negative side effects being created by rapid deforestation all around the globe.