Ecosia

Ecosia is Berlin's planet-positive search engine, founded in 2008 by Christian Kroll with a single mission: turn search ad revenue into real-world reforestation. To date, Ecosia has planted 220+ million trees across 35+ countries — financed entirely by user searches — and runs on 100% renewable energy via its own solar plants in Germany.

The business model is radical in tech: Ecosia is a non-profit-owned "steward-ownership" company, legally locked so that shares can never be sold and profits can never be paid to shareholders. 100% of surplus goes into climate action.

Key features:

• Search that plants trees — roughly one tree per 45 searches, funded by ad clicks
• 220M+ trees planted across Africa, South America, Indonesia, and beyond
• 100% renewable energy — Ecosia operates its own solar power plants
• Privacy-friendly — no permanent personal profiles, no selling of data
• Encrypted search — HTTPS by default, no third-party trackers
• Transparent finances — monthly financial and tree-planting reports published publicly
• Browser extension and mobile apps for iOS and Android
• Steward ownership — legally structured to prevent acquisition or profit extraction
• Powered by Bing/Google results — search quality comparable to mainstream engines

Headquartered in Berlin with a global impact — the cleanest, most transparent European alternative to Google Search for users who want their default search habit to do measurable climate good.