Ecosia Hits Milestone of 250 Million Trees Plan

• Ecosia is the world’s largest planter of native trees with a portfolio of 1,600 native species – 144 being on the endangered or vulnerable list
• Ecosia has financed 125 organisations that work with more than 200,000 tree planters worldwide
• The tech company has invested over €100 million into climate action including €1 million in renewable energy projects
• Ecosia expands climate work to holistic landscape restoration, not just reforestation

 

This Earth Day, Ecosia, the search engine that puts 100% of profits into climate action, has reached the milestone of 250 million trees planted worldwide, becoming the world’s largest planter of native trees.

Founder Christian Kroll – together with Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Carsten Schneider – planted a tree to symbolise the 250 million milestone in front of the German federal parliament, the Reichstag, in Berlin, home of Ecosia’s headquarters.

A global movement rooted in on-ground action

Since its founding in 2009, Ecosia has built the world’s largest network of local reforestation organisations, partnering with 125 organisations and more than 200,000 tree planters worldwide. Most importantly, these partnerships have allowed the tech company to focus on working with local experts to plant 1,600 native tree species, including 144 endangered or vulnerable species making them the leading contributors to threatened-tree conservation. These efforts are helping biodiversity hotspots recover and restoring ecosystems in communities for generations to come.

“All of our successes have come from this powerful on-the-ground movement, ” said Christian Kroll, founder of Ecosia. “From one click in 2009 to 250 million trees today, our global community supercharged our climate action,” Kroll added.

The reality of climate investment

Growing trees and forests is a long term game that is more than just planting seedings. Some of Ecosia’s trees get planted because they guarantee future revenue for the community (e.g. fruit and nut trees or trees that boost harvest yields); these provide a strong incentive for the beneficiaries of these products to protect the trees long term. Other reforestation work provides returns on investment for financers. These are the most well funded.

However, not every tree has a straightforward financial return of investment and therefore making a case for long term investment is not clear cut. In fact, much of the deforestation today is the result of trees not being worth much in the eyes of economics.Many of the most important restoration projects will never be profitable. Smallholder farms, degraded land, biodiversity hotspots, and nature restoration are often ignored by traditional finance, despite being invaluable for our future on this planet.

This is why Ecosia’s work is so critical in the reforestation space – to step in where return-seeking capital won’t. This allows vital ecosystems and communities to be supported without greenwashing or offsetting motives.

A purpose company with only one shareholder: the planet

In 2018 Ecosia gave away its shares to the Purpose Foundation, to ensure that it can never be sold and that no one, including the founder, can profit or receive dividends from the company. This means that the business is set up purely to benefit the planet.

Unique to any other tech company, Ecosia has a dedicated Tree Team; a group of forestry and nature conservation experts, social business experts, economists and social scientists, focused on finding the right partners to work with, collaborating with communities, and planting the right species to ensure our trees thrive. It is the only company in the world with a CTPO: Chief Tree Planting Officer.

“We care about our trees long term, not just for some pretty pictures of young saplings,” shared Pieter van Midwoud, Ecosia’s CTPO. “We have developed a vigorous monitoring programme to analyse if projects that we started would benefit from further support. Ecosia as a purpose company is best placed to do this long term and we hope to grow millions of more trees.”

Road to a billion

The next chapter for Ecosia is to make a bigger move into landscape restoration. Rather than solely assessing projects on factors that affect the long term benefits of trees—such as the water supply, fuel access and financial sustainability—the company has started to take a more active role in influencing those factors.

“We know that collaborating together with the local community is the only way to run a successful restoration project long term, so combining tree planting with complementary interventions that enable farmers and nature to have a bigger impact will be further strengthened,” shared van Midwoud.

Ecosia will be starting collaborations with strong landscape restoration organisations like Commonland and the Tree Team will use its knowhow on holistic restoration and agroforestry systems to strengthen these landscapes, driven by the needs and visions of the local communities.

 

Source: Ecosia