In order to support forestation and improve its environmental sustainability, the top all-girls school has switched its default search engine to Ecosia – an organisation that uses its profits to plant trees in deforested areas around the world.
The eco-conscious search engine is entirely powered by solar energy and on average plants a tree for every 45 searches made.
Ecosia aims for this to restore habitats, mitigate climate change and improve economic and social livelihoods across the world. This ranges from restoring the Atlantic Rainforest to providing employment to women in Kenya’s rural communities through the Green Belt movement and helping Haitian farmers fight food insecurity caused by hurricanes and earthquakes.
School network manager, Mr Chris Kellow said: “Ecosia search results are extremely similar to search engines such as Google. They are safe, privacy-friendly and encrypted to prevent information from being stolen.”
“Switching to Ecosia is a small and seemingly insignificant change but if we make it together as a community, it will have transforming effects on the climate, ecosystems and livelihoods across the world.”
The search engine has already planted over 74 million trees since its founding in 2009. The company finances these environmental projects by garnering advertisement revenue and investing those earnings into reforestation missions.
The school will now be able to track how many trees its community helps to add to this growing total.
Students are also being encouraged to use the search engine on their phones to plant even more trees as a school.
If you would like to install the Ecosia app on your phone to help plant trees while you search, please follow this link.
