Ecosia: The Eco-Friendly Search Engine

Saving the Planet -One Search At A Time

If you’ve ever read any of our blogs you know that we’re all about saving the planet, that is one of the reasons we started our business of paperless forms. We know that you all have busy lives and some can’t be as dedicated as others but what we can all do is make an effort whenever we see the opportunity to because in this fight to save the planet every little action, ever little decision we make counts.

SignTech Forms isn’t a platform for doomsday preaching but it would be a disservice for us to assume that the planet will right itself and everything will be fixed without us making changes to how we live. Keeping this in mind we were on the hunt for ways to make our paperless business even more eco-efficient and we recently stumbled across- or rather discovered (because we were searching) something quite extraordinary.

Planting trees is something that everyone can agree is quite important but not everyone has the time to do it and we understand. What if we told you there was a way to plant trees without having to lift a finger, or cut a cheque?

Ecosia Search Engine Plants a Tree With Each Search

Meet “Ecosia”: the best thing to happen to the internet since Netflix. Yes, those are big claims but this is big solution to an even bigger problem.

Ecosia is a web browser that uses their profits from your searches to plant trees as of this moment they’ve planted over 52 million trees and they’re showing no signs of slowing down.

So how does Ecosia work?

You start by installing a small extension on your google chrome browser which will then replace your google search engine. The installation process was very simple, no need to sign up for anything, it was done in less than 3 minutes.

We have been using the engine for about a week now and we are very impressed. When switching to a new engine, there were certain functions on google that we realized we took for granted, one of our first fears when using Ecosia was that it would not be as functional but we have to say, the only thing we miss slightly is the currency converter which to be honest, isn’t that big a deal.

They have a good privacy policy; all your data is anonymized in a week and they claim that for every search you make you’re preventing 1kg of harmful carbon emissions from being released into the atmosphere.

So how do they plant trees with your searches? They work as every search engine does, they money from ads that come up on the top of your results page as well as a few other means,

They are quite transparent. Releasing their financial reports for anyone and everyone to see. They give 80% of their profits to the cause of planting trees, supporting organizations that go and plant trees where they are needed the most. According to them you contribute to planting a tree for every 45 searches you do on their engine. Admittedly we have not planted that many trees as of yet but give it time. We will.

The best thing about Ecosia is that you’re actually playing an active role in helping the planet survive, making it a better place without having to make huge sacrifices. If you claim to care about the earth and you want to protect it but your reason for not doing much is that you don’t have time Ecosia leaves you with no excuses. You can visit their site to find out more about them.

SignTech Forms is an innovative paperless platform that converts existing forms and documents into paperless forms that can be completed on smart devices and electronically signed seamlessly (with full data integration). For more information visit www.signtechforms.com or email expert@signtechforms.com