About the event

"Ecosia is on its way to becoming the largest environmental movement in the world. We believe that a movement should not be owned by a single person. That's why responsibility ownership is the perfect solution for us. The ownership structure protects our mission and allows entrepreneurial freedom." Christian Kroll, Founder of Ecosia PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTION Christian Kroll founded Ecosia in 2009 after a trip around the world brought to his attention the environmental and social impact of deforestation. Although a non-profit legal structure is classically chosen in the field of environmental protection, Christian wanted to approach the issue of environmental protection through entrepreneurial action. So he structured Ecosia as a taxable social enterprise, which today gives him and his team the entrepreneurial freedom to experiment, invest in the product and develop ideas further. THE SEARCH ENGINE THAT PLANTS TREES Ecosia is an alternative search engine: company profits are used to plant trees around the world, especially in regions affected by deforestation. Since 2009, Ecosia has successfully planted over 123 million trees. By July 2020, Ecosia had already surpassed the 100 million trees planted mark, resulting in over 50,000 tons of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere each month. In the same month, it was reported that Ecosia is able to fund a tree every 0.8 seconds on average - that's an average of 75 per minute; 108,000 per day - with revenue from advertising. CHALLENGE: PROTECTING THE MISSION After nearly a decade of successful growth, Christian and his co-owner Tim Schumacher began to ask themselves: what becomes of Ecosia if something happens to one of us? How can Ecosia's founding idea and independence be protected in the long term? How to ensure that the company, which would be worth many millions of euros on the market, is never sold? IMPULSE LECTURE FOLLOWED BY Q&A QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION In his keynote presentation followed by a Q&A session, Christian Kroll talks about what purpose and responsible entrepreneurship mean to him. He addresses the challenge of developing a purpose enterprise and the limits of public benefit as well as the non-profit approach. In addition, he talks about his perspective on funding options for purpose enterprises. Like conventional businesses, purpose and social enterprises often require additional funding to scale their impact that cannot be lifted from operating revenues. For conventional companies, there are a host of publicly funded startup and growth financing options, as well as many private investors. For social entrepreneurs, the search is often still very challenging, which is why building better funding for social enterprises is a core demand of the Purpose movement. Your host is David Rhotert, founder of Companisto

Speaker:

Christian ist der Gründer von Ecosia – der Suchmaschine, die Bäume pflanzt. Er hat Ecosia nach einer einjährigen Weltreise ins Leben gerufen, um Menschen in Entwicklungsländern zu helfen und etwas gegen den Klimawandel zu tun. Inzwischen hat die Berliner Suchmaschine über 80 Mitarbeiter und pflanzt, dank der vielen Millionen Nutzer, jede Sekunde einen Baum.