Ecosia Search Engine Founder/CEO, Christian Kroll | Turning profits into trees

In this episode of Shaping The Future. Am speaking with Christian Kroll, founder, and CEO of Ecosia, the world’s largest not-for-profit search engine that actually uses profits to plant trees.

Christian has built a true 21st-century enterprise that sees profit in terms of how much carbon they can lock up while respecting privacy and paying taxes.

To paraphrase Christian: no one should be able to call themselves a billionaire until they absorb a billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.

Every Ad clicked on the Ecosia search engine means that trees get planted that support communities and the environment.

It is a simple choice that all of us can make, to switch a daily activity, like web searching, to actually having a positive impact on the climate.

Christian also talks about a growing generation of green technology innovators who are doing things differently.

Forget the usual billionaires with macho space toys and start listening to the next generation who are focused on repairing the Earth and shaping a world that is actually better for all of us.

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Time Stamps:

1.45 – Big versus small, Google versus Ecosia, on the eco-scale

3.30 – More users can help drive Ecosia to plant 1 trillion trees

4.30 – Tech companies have a role to play in becoming fully regenerative in terms of repairing climate – carbon neutrality was for the 1980’s!

6.30 – inspiring young people going into the workplace to be part of the transformation of society

9.05 – Tech billionaires look ridiculous in this current age. ‘If you are in the 21st Century, I think you should only be allowed to call yourself a billionaire if you have actually absorbed a billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere!’

9.45 – Young entrepreneurs starting businesses that centralise the climate impact

11.55 – Overall we need to switch from focus on profit to what is important for our wellbeing and happiness – what is the new GDP that we should aim for?

14:40 – Sticking to search tools, protecting privacy and planting trees

16.00 – 80% of users under 30 and engage with Ecosia stories via social media like Instagram/Youtube

17.00 – Message to young innovators: “If people say change is hard, we have to think about what will happen if we don’t change… young people have understood [climate change]… and that is a good thing!”

20.00 – Sharing the knowledge by speaking to large corporations or any entity where change can happen on a meaningful scale. We have to do this fast or we fail.