Uni Basel on Ecosia

Background

Students worldwide are running Ecosia on Campus campaigns to persuade their universities to install Ecosia as their default search engine. It started as a small project of three students in England and became a global digital movement.

In September 2019 Anja Zimmer initiated such a campaign with the Uni Basel on Ecosia for the University of Basel. She is doing a PhD in psychology and researches about the use of apps in therapy. For her it is important both professionally and personally to use the digital helpers we have today in the best possible way – for ourselves and for the environment.

Ecosia is an alternative search engine, which finances planting trees through search entries. Like any other search engine, they generate their income through clicks on ads or specific websites. Ecosia invests their main profit into tree planting projects and publishes their financial reports every month. On average 45 search entries plant one tree.

Goal of the project

The University of Basel is encouraged to install Ecosia as the default search engine on all their computers on the campus. Students and employees can already do this on their own devices and install Ecosia through this link. We get an overview of the planted trees every month and can exactly see how many trees have been planted by the University of Basel.

Impact

Even digitally we leave quite a footprint. Surfing, streaming, sending and servers as big as small towns – all that produces similar CO2 emissions as flying. Trees absorb CO2 and therefore pose a natural climate solution. Changing ones search engine is therefor a small switch with big impact.

Status

With the link for the University of Basel we were already able to plant over 400 trees (status 28.09.20). This thanks to all the individuals who installed Ecosia on their devices. The next steps are to further spread awareness for Ecosia, for this we have exiting actions and great conversations on the agenda. The goal is to collect as many votes as possible and the OK from the IT to submit an application to the Rectorate, asking the University of Basel to make the official switch to Ecosia. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook to get updates on the project! You can find the link to download the search engine here.

Head of project: Anja Zimmer