Software utilities

Ecocho is a Sydney-based company which runs a zero emission search engine. Yes, it’s true! They plant 2 trees for every thousand searches performed on their website (which uses data from Yahoo and Google). The international website seems down now, their servers couldn’t support the traffic (they planted more then 2700 trees by now!)

From the Ecocho website(www.ecocho.com):

What’s Ecocho?

Ecocho is a new search engine trying to make a difference for climate change.
For every 1000 searches users make on Ecocho we’ll counter balances or “offset” up to a ton of greenhouse gases. We do this by sponsoring two trees via advertising on the site.

See below for more details.

Key Facts about Ecocho
Supporting the growth of trees is an effective form of carbon offsetting

Imagine searching the web and saving the planet at the same time. How does that work? Glad you asked.

Ecocho is a free service, and it’s one of the easiest ways people can change everyday behaviour to make a positive impact on the environment.

It allows you to search the web using your favourite search engine technology (Yahoo or Google) and reduce greenhouse gases as you do it.

* Each time you use ecocho as your search engine, you’ll be helping to slow climate change.

* How? For every 1000 searches that users make on ecocho.com, up to two trees will be grown to offset carbon pollution emissions

* Switching to ecocho.com doesn’t alter or slow your search. Search results are displayed via technology you already know and trust - Yahoo and Google

* ecocho.com is the world’s first known search engine that enables users to offset their own carbon emissions for free

* ecocho.com is an international initiative to reduce global warming. The service is multi-lingual and is being rolled out globally.

* Trees are grown via official Government-accredited projects.

* KPMG will run quarterly and final year-end audits on the amount of carbon credits purchased and “retired” by ecocho

* Yahoo and Google have both given their support to the project, contributing the search results for the site

* ecocho.com aims to contribute 70 per cent of revenue back into carbon offset credits, for the growth of trees

* Now everyone can help reduce global warming by switching to ecocho.com as their internet search engine

Sowing the seeds of ecological change

A thousand searches on Ecocho allow us to buy enough carbon offset credits to remove 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. This works out at two trees spending a year sucking CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, which makes us very happy.

So what about you? We understand it can be hard to make significant lifestyle changes to help the environment. This is why we’ve made it totally easy to make a difference:

Make Ecocho your Internet search engine

Get the usual Yahoo and Google results

Offset your carbon emissions for free

We know that much more must be done long term than just planting trees. But if we can make the way people search the Internet not only help the environment but also take no significant initial adjustment on their part, Ecocho can gently increase participation whilst sowing the seed of ecological thinking for greater change to follow. Ecocho could start the ball rolling.
Eco-searching: You search. We grow trees.