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Ecosia: Planting change one search at a time

Sophie Dembinski, Head of Public Policy & UK Country Manager at Ecosia for Green Tech South West giving us an introduction to the search engine which plants trees, one of the world's largest environmental movements

Event overview

Green Tech South West were excited to welcome Sophie Dembinski, Head of Public Policy & UK Country Manager at Ecosia, to introduce us to this rather fantastic organisation.

For those of you that haven’t heard of Ecosia before they are a search engine that plants trees using the ad revenue they generate. With 15+ million users, Ecosia represents one of the largest global movements tackling climate change. As a purpose driven business and registered BCorp, Ecosia has planted 100 million trees since it was founded in 2009.

Sophie gave us an introduction to Ecosia, how it works, it’s aims and successes so far. She explained that they are creating a movement rather than simply an eco-friendly search engine and took us through ‘Ecosia On Campus’ – a student-led campaign persuading the world’s universities to use Ecosia. Sophie also highlighted the challenges they face and answered what it’s like to take on Google.

See the event on meetup.com

About Sophie

Sophie is Ecosia’s UK Country Manager and Head of Public Policy. Prior to joining Ecosia she was a senior advisor at the global law firm DLA Piper, where she advised NGOs, governments, international organisations and private clients on global strategic, political and regulatory issues. Sophie is also the UK coordinator for flagship transatlantic leadership programme and a volunteer therapist at the Refugee Council.

Watch the event video

To make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for, here’s the key timings in the video:

👋 07:35 – A welcome from your meet-up organisers, Ellen, Hannah and Mike with a brief overview of GTSW and what we’re about

📢 15:00 – Our famous 60 second intros – a chance for attendees to introduce themselves, ask for help and tell us about something the group might find interesting

💚 24:50 – Sophie’s talk

❓ 01:00:00 – Q&A session

🗓️ 01:05:53 – Round-up, other community notices and next event announcement

❓ 01:11:49 – Final round of questions.

Resources and links

One of the perks of holding events online, and having such a wonderful and engaging community, is we share a huge amount of useful resources and information throughout the event. Here’s a summary of what we unearthed.

Sophie’s slides

Browse Sophie’s slides below:

Ecosia-x-GreenTech-South-West-Introduction-1-min

Links and resources

Our slides with upcoming events