Ecosia是合法的

Millions of Acacia saplings have been planted in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. Given the right conditions, this little leafy plants will transform over many years into a wide-branched, shade-giving tree.

相思树苗的M个illions已种植在布基纳法索萨赫勒地区。 在适当的条件下，这种多叶小植物将在多年后转化为宽枝的，给人阴影的树。

Right now, Acacia trees, along with a variety of herbs and grasses, are sprouting in pockets of land across the Sahel region — helping to combat the ever-growing threat of desertification caused by climate change.

目前，相思树以及各种草药和草丛正在萨赫勒地区的土地上发芽，这有助于应对气候变化带来的日益严重的荒漠化威胁。

These little saplings didn’t magically sprout out of the ground. They’re the product of a string of connections that lead back to a search engine called Ecosia.

这些小树苗并没有从地上神奇地萌芽。 它们是一系列连接的产物，这些连接返回到名为Ecosia的搜索引擎。

Yes, a search engine is in part responsible for a tree-planting project in Burkina Faso. In fact, Ecosia now claims that they’ve helped plant over 106 million trees.

是的，搜索引擎部分负责布基纳法索的植树项目。 实际上，Ecosia现在声称他们已经帮助种植了超过1.06亿棵树。

However, it seems almost too good to be true that every time I search for something on the web, someone halfway across the world plants a tree. So, it’s time to get to the bottom of this with a simple question: Is Ecosia legitimate?

但是，每次我在网上搜索东西时，世界各地的人都在种一棵树，这似乎太真实了。 因此，现在是一个简单的问题：Ecosia是否合法？

Or more specifically, does Ecosia actually use their profits to plant trees and is it environmentally and ethically better to use Ecosia over other search tools like Google?

或者更具体地说，Ecosia是否真正利用其利润来植树，并且在生态和道德上比使用Google等其他搜索工具更好地使用Ecosia？

在互联网上搜索如何导致植树？ (How Searching on the Internet Leads to Tree Planting?)

Ecosia is the brainchild of a German entrepreneur, Christian Kroll, and essentially transforms revenue from ads that pop up in your search results into planted trees.

Ecosia是德国企业家Christian Kroll的创意，从本质上将搜索结果中弹出的广告收入转化为树木。

In order to figure out whether Ecosia is legit, we need to understand if and how searching for things on the internet leads to tree planting. So, let’s follow the money.

为了弄清楚Ecosia是否合法，我们需要了解在互联网上搜索事物是否以及如何导致植树。 所以，让我们跟随金钱。

Ecosia generates revenue by selling ad space in their search engine. They then turn around and use that to support what they call “local partners” or non-profit organizations that are doing tree planting projects primarily in the global south.

Ecosia通过出售其搜索引擎中的广告空间来创收。 然后，他们转身使用它们来支持所谓的“本地合作伙伴”或主要在全球南部开展植树项目的非营利组织。

For example, a clothing company might pay to push their link to the top of Ecosia’s search results. This money then gets transferred into Ecosia’s coffers, and according to their financial reports, is used to cover four main expenses: Operating costs, Marketing, Reinvestment, and tree planting.

例如，某服装公司可能会付费将其链接推到Ecosia搜索结果的顶部。 然后将这笔钱转入Ecosia的金库，并根据其财务报告，用于支付四个主​​要费用：运营成本，营销，再投资和植树。

In total Ecosia donates roughly 47% of their total revenue every month to tree planting projects, or 80% of its profits if you take operating costs out of the picture.

总体而言，Ecosia每月将其总收入的大约47％捐赠给植树项目，如果将运营成本排除在外，则将其利润的80％用于捐赠。

Of course, these financial reports are self-published and might not be trustworthy. But Ecosia has been certified as a B-corporation since 2014, which means that it’s been verified by the third-party B-corps standard that assesses how much positive impact companies have on their workers, customers, community, and environment.

当然，这些财务报告是自行发布的，可能并不可信。 但是自2014年以来，Ecosia就已被认证为B级公司，这意味着它已通过第三方B-corps标准的验证，该标准评估了公司对其员工，客户，社区和环境的积极影响。

So, overall I think that it’s safe to assume that Ecosia’s financial reports are correct.

因此，总的来说，我认为可以肯定地认为Ecosia的财务报告是正确的。

Ecosia如何种植树木？ (How Does Ecosia Plant Trees?)

When it comes to giving money to tree-planting operations, Ecosia doesn’t directly allocate money to local people planting trees all around the world, instead they work with companies like WeForest in Burkina Faso or Brazil-based Copaiba.

在为植树业务捐款时，Ecosia不会直接将钱分配给全世界植树的当地人，而是与布基纳法索的WeForest或巴西的Copaiba等公司合作。

Currently, Ecosia finances 21 different tree-planting operations in biodiversity hotspots, which, according to Ecosia, are zones that “face extreme threats, hold at least 1,500 species of endemic plants and have been diminished by at least 70%.”

目前，Ecosia为生物多样性热点地区的21种不同的植树活动提供了资金，据Ecosia称，这些地区“面临着极端威胁，拥有至少1,500种特有植物，并且已经减少了至少70％”。

This means that planting vegetation in these places would have high-impact results. So, when an organization like WeForest receives money from Ecosia, they work with surrounding towns to create tree planting plans that are location specific.

这意味着在这些地方种植植被会产生很大的影响。 因此，当像WeForest这样的组织从Ecosia那里收到资金时，他们会与周围的城镇一起制定针对特定地点的植树计划。

In Burkina Faso, that takes the form of planting native Acacia trees to combat desertification caused by drought.

在布基纳法索，采取的方式是种植本地相思树以抗击干旱造成的荒漠化。

While in Madagascar, the Ecosia-backed Eden Reforestation Project hires and trains people from local towns to help replenish the mangrove forest estuaries in the Northwest of the country.

在马达加斯加期间，由Ecosia支持的伊甸园再造林项目雇用并培训了当地城镇的人们，以帮助补充该国西北部的红树林河口。

All this goes to show that yes, Ecosia is actually planting trees. But the key thing here is that it’s not as simple as a click from your computer translating to a sapling in the ground.

所有这些表明，是的，Ecosia实际上是在植树。 但是这里的关键是，这并不像计算机发出的点击转换为树苗一样简单。

There is a chain of organizations, people, money, and hard work that help make your search on Ecosia transform into a planted tree.

有一系列的组织，人员，金钱和努力工作，可以帮助您在Ecosia上搜索变成一棵植树。

Ecosia是针对环境的最佳搜索引擎吗？ (Is Ecosia the Best Search Engine For The Environment?)

Even if Ecosia is actually converting revenue into trees, does that mean you should use it over a search engine like Google?

即使Ecosia实际上是将收入转化为树木，这是否意味着您应该在Google等搜索引擎上使用它？

In my opinion, yes. If you’re an average web searcher like me, then most of the time Ecosia feels the same as Google.

我认为是的。 如果您像我一样是普通的网络搜索者，那么大多数时候，Ecosia与Google一样。

When it comes down to it, you’re going to have to use a search engine, so why not use one that seeks to plant trees instead of one that owns half of the internet?

归根结底，您将不得不使用搜索引擎，那么为什么不使用寻求植树的搜索引擎而不是拥有互联网一半的搜索引擎呢？

That being said there is one problem: Ecosia’s search results and ads are powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. So even though Ecosia might be a well-meaning company, you are still using a souped-up Microsoft product when you use Ecosia.

话虽这么说，这里存在一个问题：Ecosia的搜索结果和广告由Microsoft的Bing搜索引擎提供支持。 因此，即使Ecosia可能是一家好公司，当您使用Ecosia时，您仍在使用强大的Microsoft产品。

Considering the fact that Google uses 100% renewable energy to power their data centers while Microsoft Bing only draws 44% of its energy from renewables, Ecosia seems a bit less environmentally friendly.

考虑到Google使用100％可再生能源为数据中心供电的事实，而Microsoft Bing仅从可再生能源中获取其44％的能源，因此Ecosia似乎对环境的友好程度有所降低。

But Microsoft has committed to a 75% reduction in carbon emissions across its whole operation by 2030, and Ecosia’s tree planting projects are essentially carbon negative.

但是微软承诺到2030年在其整个运营过程中将碳排放减少75％，而Ecosia的植树项目实质上是碳负排放。

As the 52 million trees they’ve planted mature, the trees will suck in roughly 2.5 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in their lifetime.

随着他们种植的5200万棵树的成熟，这些树在其一生中将吸收大约250万吨二氧化碳。

According to Ecosia, every search you make with them takes 1kg of Carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

根据Ecosia的说法，每次与他们进行搜索都会从大气中吸收1千克二氧化碳。

So, as Bing switches to a greener grid and Ecosia grows in size, the search engine’s carbon impact will only shrink.

因此，当Bing切换到更绿色的网格并且Ecosia的规模不断扩大时，搜索引擎的碳影响将只会缩小。

最后的想法 (Final Thoughts)

Ultimately, when I started researching for this article, I was skeptical of search engines like Ecosia. They always seem to be a little too good to be true. However, after looking behind the scenes of their operation, I could find few reasons not to make the switch from Google to Ecosia.

最终，当我开始研究本文时，我对像Ecosia这样的搜索引擎持怀疑态度。 他们似乎总是太好了，难以置信。 但是，在了解了他们的运营幕后之后，我发现没有理由不从Google转到Ecosia的理由很少。

When it comes down to it, the team behind this ecologically-minded search engine seems to be doing some good environmental work and is also transparent about their finances and tree planting projects.

归根结底，这个具有生态意识的搜索引擎背后的团队似乎正在做一些出色的环境工作，并且对其财务和植树项目也保持透明。

Moreover, the switch isn’t that hard, and the way I see it is that Ecosia is an easy way to bring a little bit of green back into this world.

此外，切换并不难，我所看到的是Ecosia是将一点绿色带回这个世界的简单方法。

翻译自: https://medium.com/discourse/is-ecosia-legitimate-51874d6c6567