ESG much money you have in the bank ”, says Kroll . “ To me , you should only become a billionaire when you ’ ve removed a billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere . This should be the type of aspiration people should strive for .”
Businesses can do more to fight against climate change To prevent climate disaster , change must come from individuals , governments and Fortune 500 companies . From ensuring that only ethical purchases are being made to choosing sustainable partners to auditing the supply chain .
“ If businesses want to fight the climate crisis , they need to put sustainability at the core of everything they do – including analysing their carbon footprint , setting out sustainable targets to cut emissions and delivering on them ,” says Kroll .
“ Over the years there have been too many corporations that say they ’ re investing in tree planting or transitioning to becoming a sustainable company , but secretly lobbying against environmental regulation .”
“ It ’ s important to demonstrate you can be successful in other ways instead of just how much money you have in the bank ”
CHRISTIAN KROLL CEO , ECOSIA
Businesses can also bring about change from within and one way to do this is by using Ecosia . “ Encourage your employees to get involved too – from switching to Ecosia as your official search engine , encouraging people not to take business trips to reduce environmental costs , and not serving meat or unsustainably sourced fish in the work canteen ,” he says , but Kroll warns that businesses won ’ t get results by putting the onus on employees . “ It has to be a top-down commitment to making changes that will make a difference in the long term .”
Businesses also need to focus on future-proofing . Kroll has made it legally irreversible for anyone to sell Ecosia , or to take profits out of it .
“ I wanted to make sure that Ecosia was always focused on purpose , not profit , regardless of whether I was running the company ”, he explains . “ I gave all my shares in Ecosia to the Purpose Foundation so no one can take profits out of the company or receive dividends . So if something happened to me , a big corporation couldn ’ t buy Ecosia or dilute the mission . Our capitalist system is set up in such a way that we should crave money and profits but we should do what we can to fight against this .”
Searching for a fairer planet For the immediate future , Ecosia has no big plans , only to continue to advocate for fair and equal practice when it comes to search engines .
“ Search engines have an incredible amount of power ”, says Kroll . “ They are the window to the internet for people and the platform you use can impact what you see and impact the world .”
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