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The search engine that plants trees with its ad revenue
Ecosia is a German search engine that uses its advertising revenue to fund tree planting, having planted over 200 million trees while protecting user privacy.
Headquarters
Berlin, Germany
Founded
2009
Pricing
Employees
51-200
Free
Billing: free
Here is a bold proposition: every time you search the internet, you could be planting a tree. Not metaphorically, not through some convoluted carbon offset scheme, but through direct funding of reforestation projects verified by satellite imagery. That is what Ecosia promises, and remarkably, it delivers.
Ecosia is a search engine headquartered in Berlin, Germany, founded in 2009 by Christian Kroll. Its business model is straightforward: it generates revenue from search advertising (like Google and Bing do) and channels approximately 80% of its profits into tree-planting projects worldwide. As of 2026, the platform has funded the planting of over 200 million trees across more than 35 countries.
What makes Ecosia structurally different from a corporate sustainability programme is its legal framework. Kroll donated his shares to the Purpose Foundation, a steward-ownership structure that makes it legally impossible to sell the company or extract profits as dividends. Ecosia is also a certified B Corporation and publishes monthly financial reports showing exactly where the money goes.
The search engine uses Bing's index for its results, supplemented by Ecosia's own ranking signals. It runs entirely on renewable energy — 200% renewable, meaning it generates twice the energy it consumes through its own solar plants. The platform is available as a browser extension and mobile app, requiring no account to use.
The question is not whether Ecosia's mission is admirable — it clearly is. The question is whether the search experience is good enough that using it does not feel like a sacrifice.
Ecosia's search results come primarily from Microsoft's Bing index. For the majority of everyday queries — directions, recipes, news, product searches — the results are perfectly adequate. Where Ecosia falls short is on technical, long-tail, or highly specialised queries where Google's index depth and ranking sophistication genuinely shine. If you search "best Italian restaurant near me," Ecosia works fine. If you search for an obscure error message from a niche programming library, you may need to fall back to Google.
The practical compromise many users adopt is setting Ecosia as their default search engine and switching to Google for the approximately 10-15% of searches where Bing's results are insufficient. Ecosia even includes a quick-switch button to re-run your search on Google.
Every Ecosia user gets a personal tree counter showing how many trees their searches have funded. It takes roughly 45 searches to fund one tree. The counter is a simple but effective gamification element that makes the environmental impact tangible. Beyond individual counters, Ecosia publishes monthly financial reports detailing total revenue, operating costs, and exact amounts disbursed to tree-planting organisations. This level of transparency is rare among technology companies of any size.
Ecosia does not create personal user profiles. Search data is anonymised within seven days. The company does not sell personal data to advertisers or third parties. While Ecosia is not as privacy-hardened as DuckDuckGo (which uses its own crawler and has stronger anti-tracking features), it represents a significant improvement over Google, which builds comprehensive profiles from search history.
Ads do appear in Ecosia results — that is how the tree planting is funded — but they are contextual (based on the current search query) rather than behavioural (based on your search history and personal profile).
Ecosia marks environmentally conscious businesses in search results with a green leaf icon. This is a small but thoughtful feature for users who want to make sustainable purchasing decisions. The criteria for the green leaf designation are not exhaustive, but they provide a useful signal when comparing options.
Ecosia is available as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, and as a standalone mobile app for iOS and Android. Setting it as your default search engine takes under a minute. The mobile app functions as a full browser with Ecosia search built in, which is practical for users who want a one-stop privacy-respecting mobile browser.
Ecosia is completely free. There are no premium tiers, no subscriptions, and no account required. The service is funded entirely through search advertising revenue. This makes Ecosia's value proposition unique: you get a functional search engine, and the simple act of using it funds environmental restoration.
The cost-to-user is essentially zero, unless you count the marginal decrease in search quality compared to Google. For most users, this trade-off is negligible for daily searches. The environmental return — approximately one tree per 45 searches — is tangible and verifiable.
Compared to other ethical search alternatives, Ecosia stands out. DuckDuckGo is privacy-focused but does not fund environmental projects. Startpage uses Google results but is subscription-optional. Only Ecosia combines privacy improvement with direct environmental impact at zero cost.
Ecosia GmbH is registered in Berlin, Germany, and operates fully under GDPR. The company does not engage in behavioural advertising, does not build user profiles, and anonymises search data within a week. No personal data is sold or shared with third parties for advertising purposes.
The company's B Corporation status and Purpose Foundation ownership structure add layers of ethical accountability that go beyond typical GDPR compliance. Annual impact audits verify both environmental claims and business practices.
One nuance: because search results come from Bing, Microsoft processes the search query itself. Ecosia states it does not pass personally identifiable information to Microsoft, but users should be aware that the query text does flow through Microsoft's infrastructure. For users who require absolute search privacy, tools like DuckDuckGo's onion service or Startpage may be more appropriate.
Ecosia is one of those rare products where the mission is not a marketing veneer — it is the entire reason the company exists. The steward-ownership structure, monthly financial transparency, and verifiable tree-planting impact make it genuinely trustworthy. As a search engine, it is good enough for 85-90% of typical searches.
The limitations are honest: search quality trails Google for specialised queries, image and video search are weaker, and there are no advanced search operators for power users. The privacy posture is better than Google but not best-in-class. What makes Ecosia compelling is not that it is the best search engine — it is that switching to it costs you almost nothing while funding reforestation at meaningful scale. That trade-off is worth it for most people.
Yes. Ecosia works with local planting partners in over 35 countries and uses satellite imagery, drone monitoring, and on-the-ground audits to verify planting and survival rates. The company publishes tree-planting updates with specific project details, locations, and partner organisations. They are transparent about the fact that not all planted trees survive — survival rates vary by region and species — but they fund ongoing replanting to compensate.
Building a web search index from scratch costs billions and requires crawling the entire internet continuously. Only Google, Microsoft (Bing), and a handful of other companies have achieved this at scale. Ecosia pragmatically partners with Bing to provide quality search results while focusing its resources on its tree-planting mission. Creating an independent index would consume the revenue that currently funds reforestation.
Yes. Ecosia can be set as the default search engine in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari through browser settings or managed policies. Some organisations have adopted Ecosia company-wide as part of their corporate sustainability initiatives. There is no enterprise plan or administration console — it is simply set as the default search engine in each browser.
Ecosia generates revenue through search advertising, the same model used by Google and Bing. When you click on an ad in search results, the advertiser pays Ecosia. The company retains approximately 20% of profits for operations, investments, and reserves, and distributes the rest to tree-planting projects. The monthly financial reports show this breakdown in detail. Ecosia's team is lean — around 80-100 employees — which keeps operating costs manageable.
At scale, yes. Over 200 million trees funded is a meaningful reforestation contribution. Studies estimate that the average tree absorbs approximately 22 kilograms of CO2 per year. At Ecosia's scale, the carbon sequestration from funded trees is substantial. Beyond carbon, the tree-planting projects restore biodiversity, prevent erosion, and support local livelihoods. Individual impact accumulates: a regular Ecosia user funds roughly 20-25 trees per year through normal search behaviour.
Independent search engine with its own crawler and no tracking
Alternative to Google, Duckduckgo