EcoSearch: The Environmentally-Friendly Search Engine

Conducting a web search with Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search or any other search engine uses energy. Not the energy that you expend pressing the buttons on your keyboard, but the energy that is needed to run both your computer and the search engine's servers. While each search only uses a relatively small amount of energy, the combined effect of millions of people conducting multiple searches each day is substantial.

I don't know how much energy Google's network of computers actually uses, but you can safely assume that their monthly electricity bill comes to more than the cost of an average house. And, of course, generating all that energy results in the production of a large amount of C0² which, as pretty much everybody knows, is a bad thing for the environment.

Can you make your searches more energy-efficient? Not really, no. But you can make them more environmentally-friendly

by searching with EcoSearch.org. Like Google, EcoSearch has an uncluttered, minimalist interface that makes it exceptionally easy to use. Furthermore, as EcoSearch's engine is powered by Google, you'll get the exact same results that you would from a Google search.

Here's how it works. Google shares a portion of its advertising revenue with partner companies, of which EcoSearch is one. EcoSearch.org, which is a non-profit, then donates 100% of its profits to charities which help the environment. To date, EcoSearch has donated money to Sierra Club, TreePeople, National Resource Defense Council, Heal the Bay, Rainforest Alliance, Healthy Child, Healthy World and the Remedee Foundation and are open to suggestions to as to other worthwhile causes that they could be supporting.

EcoSearch.org doesn't have some of the features that you'll find in Google - for example, there is no dedicated image, maps, news or video search - but, except for that, EcoSearch and Google offer an almost identical experience. Should you wish to make EcoSearch.org the default search provider in either Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can simply click on the "Add to Internet Explorer or FireFox Search Bar" button on EcoSearch's main page.

Too often, attempting to do what's right for the environment can be an inconvenient pain in the butt and Kermit the Frog certainly had it right when he said, "It's not easy being green." But, with EcoSearch.org, it's as easy as pie.