Introducing eco-friendly search engine Ecosia

In support of JMSU’s Sustainability Week taking place from next Monday, 3 February, the university will be trialling a new eco-friendly default internet search engine.

All LJMU networked machines will be switching for the week from Google to Ecosia.

Set up in 2009, Ecosia is a search engine with around 7 million users which donates 80% of its profits to non-profit organisations that focus on reforestation. They use the profits made from searches to plant trees where they are most needed – to date they have planted more than 81m trees. When using Ecosia you can see the number of trees being planted on a rolling basis. 

Ecosia on Campus is a global, student-led campaign that aims to make Ecosia the default search engine across the world’s universities.

This week-long switch was requested by JMSU to highlight the impact we can all have in small ways to help our environment. At the end of the trial, the default browser will revert back to Google, whist we work with JMSU to evaluate student and staff feedback. The university will then consider whether to make Ecosia our permanent search engine. 

During Sustainability Week, if colleagues wish to use Google or any other search engine they can simply type the name in the web address and use it as normal.