Christian Kroll
| Christian Kroll | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) | |
| Born | Berlin, Germany |
| 💼 Occupation |
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| 📆 Years active | 2007, 2009–present |
| Known for | Founder of Ecosia |
Christian Kroll (born 5 December 1983) is a German entrepreneur who founded the nonprofit organisation Ecosia.[1] He was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up in Wittenberg, Germany. In December of 2009, Kroll founded the nonprofit organisation Ecosia.[2] Ecosia is a search engine dedicated to its mission to "make the world a greener, better place" through reforestation.[3] Uniquely, Ecosia donates at least 80% of its profits to reforestation projects.[3][4][5]
Early life
Kroll was born in East Germany in 1983. When in high school, the dot-com bubble, the tech bubble, and the Internet bubble was a stock market bubble caused by excessive speculation of Internet-related companies in the late 1990s, and Kroll became interested in the stock market, which led him to study business administration at Nuremberg University. While he was studying, he started building websites and became involved in tech and the internet.
During his studies, he traveled to India briefly, which opened his eyes to the world. After he finished his studies, he started traveling around the world. He went to Nepal for six months and, after that, to South America. While travelling, he became aware of the problems in developing countries like massive inequality in Nepal and massive deforestation in South America. Then he started thinking about contributing to a better world and returning to Berlin to start a social business that would put its profits into tackling climate change and social inequality.
Kroll is not interested in money, but rather in tackling climate change and making a positive difference for future generations. In 2018, he made the decision to make Ecosia a steward-owned company, giving away his shares to the Purpose Foundation and ensuring Ecosia can never be sold or have profits taken out of it. This ensures that Ecosia can continue to flourish and fill the world with trees, not fill the pockets of shareholders.
Social business
Main article: Social business of Christian Kroll
During his studies, Kroll developed a website which compared banking services, and spent the majority of the website income on Google advertisements. In Nepal, Kroll created a search engine with the goal of financing development projects. With Ecosia, he combined the profitable business model of a search engine with the purpose of tackling climate change.
The funding to plant trees came from www.ecosia.org, a green search engine to contribute to the protection of the rainforests. Kroll used the income to plant trees where they are needed most. By September 2020, they had planted close to 100 million trees across 19 reforestation sites worldwide.[6] Kroll invested all the income into the projects, but this meant he couldn’t pay his employees, let alone grow their team. After some time, the business started to grow and helped to invest in other green investments, like solar power plants.
Financial reports
Main article: Financial reports of Ecosia
On 5 February 2021, Ecosia’s total income was €9,135,150 ($9,570,847.12). Ecosia provides completely transparent financial reports. Ecosia’s August 2019 income net worth was $19.5 million. Each month, Ecosia pays its income to its different partners to plant trees and to regenerate forests. Currently, Ecosia has 8 million active users worldwide. To earn the trust of the users, Ecosia publishes the financial reports monthly on their website. Ecosia's founders can never take profits out of the company. In 2017, Ecosia built a solar plant to ensure it was 200% renewable energy, making the search engine carbon-negative.
Ecosia uses sponsored results in its search results. For every sponsored result, Ecosia earns money from the advertisers and uses 80% of the revenue to plant trees worldwide. Every search removes 1 kg of CO2, and every 45 searches on average plants one tree.[Web 1]
Reforestation efforts
Main article: Reforestation effort by Ecosia
As of September 2020, Kroll had paid for over 105 million trees to be planted.[7] These trees are spread out in 15 different countries: Peru, Brazil, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Indonesia.[8]
References
- ↑ "GOOGLECompeting Search Engines Won't Support Google's Auction". PYMNTS. August 12, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "How was Ecosia founded?". Ecosia. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bearne, Suzanne. "The search engine boss who wants to help us all plant trees". BBC. BBC. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
- ↑ Oates, John (August 12, 2019). "Green search engine Ecosia thinks Google's Android auction stinks, gives bid a hard pass". The Register. Retrieved September 19, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205038392-How-was-Ecosia-founded-
- ↑ https://biographyinsider.com/christian-kroll/#Early_Life_Education
- ↑ Horswill, Ian (August 31, 2020). "The CEO who has paid for 105 million trees to be planted". CEO Magazine. Retrieved September 19, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Where does Ecosia plant trees?". Ecosia. September 19, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
External links
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