German Search Engine Planting Trees Every Time you Browse

When fires raged across Brazil this summer and deforestation rates reached startling highs, users began downloading a small German search engine in a modest effort to counteract the devastation.

Ecosia GmBH, a Berlin-based alternative to Google, donates as much as 80% of the profit it makes from running ads alongside search results to plant trees around the world.

As awareness increases around the impact of climate change -- from floods wiping out harvests or droughts forcing water restrictions -- Ecosia says it’s attracting more users as a result.

Christian Kroll at his office in Berlin.

Photographer: Arne Immanuel Bnsch/picture alliance via Getty Images

“It’s easy to underestimate the massive impact that planting trees...