Search advertising is a colossal business that touches pretty much every web user. So a search engine that diverts the bulk of the cash raised to protecting a rainforest in northern Brazil looks, like all the best ideas, simple and good.
The site is Ecosia and has just passed €250,000 in funds raised, 18 months on from its launch. It is a "mask" for Microsoft's Bing search engine, and 80% of the revenue from the search advertising goes straight to WWF, who run the Tumucumaque project.
Ecosia's Shannon Smith told me Ecosia is currently doing about 700,000 searches a day. The company is based in Berlin and offsets the emissions from each search with PURE and the Gold Standard. She says the site's own servers run on green energy. Ecosia also publishes all its accounts online.
There are other green searches, like Treehoo and Ecosearch, but Ecosia impresses me most.
Why should people use Ecosia ahead of their usual search engine, I asked Smith. "Why not?" she replied. It's a good answer.
Note: I'm away next week. Thanks as ever for all the clicks and comments. I'll be back from 13th June.
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This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timeComments (11)
This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timeBack in the day we were told to use Blackle Search Engine to save energy. Turned out it wasn't scientific.
Does simply using the search engine count? Seems to simple, like Iamtheurbanspaceman suggests.
Surely you have to click on one of the advertisers which pops up on the right. Since I never click on them, Ecosia wouldn't get anything from me ... assuming that this is the way it works.