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If you browse Snopes.com, you'll likely come across the advice, If it seems too good to be true, it it probably is on pages about social media scams. While this platitude is certainly worth considering when browsing the internet, a few exceptions exist. The Germany-based search engine Ecosia claims to use its profits to plant trees around the world. Its home page even carries a tally of the number of trees that have reportedly been planted by Ecosia users: For many people, this business model may seem too good to be true and has led to some skepticism about the legitimacy of this company. A search on Google, for instance, results in several articles and blog posts questioning the legitimacy of the search engine and asking whether Ecosia is a scam. As far as we can tell, Ecosia is a legitimate search engine that truly uses a portion of its profits to help plant trees around the world. Ecosia was launched in 2009 by Christian Kroll. At the time, the search engine was partnered with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and promised to donate at least 80 percent of its income from sponsored links to WWF’s rainforest protection programme in Brazil’s Juruena-Apui region. WWF announced the partnership in a blog post: Since 2009, Ecosia has partnered with a number of other environmental organizations. The company reports it uses a portion of its profits to fund these organizations, who in turn work to plant trees around the world. Ecosia makes money the way most other search engines and websites do: through advertising revenue. While this money covers various business expenses, such as advertising and operational costs, Ecosia claims that the majority of its revenue goes toward funding tree-planting projects. Ecosia releases monthly financial reports so users can see exactly how the company is spending its money. The most recent full report comes from July 2019. The following report shows that 52% of its total income (approximately 80% of its surplus revenue) was invested in tree-planting projects; 5% was spent on advertising; 30% was spent on operational costs; and 12% went into company reserves, which are used to fund larger environmental investments: We have been unable to independently verify these numbers. However, we checked the websites of several of Ecosia's reported benefactors and found that many of these organizations list Ecosia as one of their partners. Dr. Simon Pfister, managing director of Green Ethiopia, an organization working to grow forests in Ethiopia that received approximately $150,000 from Ecosia in June 2019, told us that Ecosia accurately reported its donation in the company's financial report. Ecosia is also a Certified B Corporation. This means that Ecosia underwent a third-party evaluation that determined the company had an overall positive impact on its workers, community, and environment. According to the company: Ecosia truly uses a large portion of its profits to fund tree planting projects. Of course, for anyone searching for an environmentally friendly search engine, planting trees isn't the only factor to consider. Ecosia is largely powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine. While Microsoft's global operations have been carbon neutral since 2012, the data centers powering Bing don't run entirely on renewable energy. Microsoft is working toward this goal, however, and expects to be driven by 100 percent renewable energy by 2023: For comparison's sake, Google announced in 2017 that its search engine was being powered by 100% renewable energy. While Microsoft may not be at quite at 100% renewable energy yet, Ecosia claims that its own servers run on clean power thanks to its new solar plant. Additionally, Ecosia's carbon footprint is lessened due to its involvement with various tree-planting projects around the world. The company says: To sum up: Ecosia makes money through advertisements on its search engine. While a portion of that money is used to fund the operational costs of the business, about 80% of its surplus revenue is donated to environmental organizations and tree-planting projects around the world.
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