Awesome idea! Help the planet while you search the web

How often you think your activities on the web can be beneficial for the planet? Honestly, I don't.

I used to work near a data center before and I always thought that all these power hungry machines and applications powering our Internet are killing the planet by consuming a huge amount of energy and releasing heat. To mitigate this issue, many companies are looking at alternative/greener/clean energy source to power the data centers. Some even plant trees around the data center to help in cooling the place down.

NOTE:Other than releasing oxygen and cooling the planet, some trees have hidden properties as well. You can read more at my previous blog post about Kenaf and Bodhi trees.

While looking at Google Analytics real time dashboard yesterday night, a referral caught my attention. The referral was - Ecosia.org. Being curious, I decided to check it out and OMG! I was truly impressed by the idea behind Ecosia.org.

In a nutshell:

Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees with its ad revenue.

Yup. Simple mantra as a mission statement. Love it!

Ecosia, is a pioneering social business and one of the first B-Corps in Europe. Their mission is to cultivate a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable world. To achieve that, they plan to plant a billion native trees by 2020. Hope they will succeed!

Currently, they are looking for a full stack developer in Berlin. See the job description at https://ecosia.workable.com/. Wish I was in Berlin, but due to the family commitment, I'm stuck here in Malaysia.

Read more about Ecosia and their transparency statement at https://info.ecosia.org/about. They also have a FAQ video with the founder - Christian Kroll.

NOTE: While it is good to know that searching with Ecosia helps to plant more trees; however, we should chip in as well to plant our own trees where ever we are. At the rate of world wide deforestation today, this planet needs more trees!