We have been openly in love with Ecosia for some time. They were one of our first ever customers and if you were lucky enough to be at our persist* summit this year, you will probably have met some of their awesome team.
Ecosia is (probably) Berlin's most successful social startup: a company that makes a lot of money but does only impactful things with it. They plant a tree every 0.8 seconds. That's over 65 million so far, in case you're counting. They have just built their own solar plants to make themselves CO2 negative. And they are challenging Google's monopolistic power at every opportunity. They are also one of the pioneer Purpose companies and all-round bad-asses, who do things like trying to buy forests at risk of getting destroyed.
AND NOW, their founder and CEO Christian has announced that his employees should become climate activists themselves. And the company will shoulder the cost. Is that not something that the rest of the social and environmental sector can take as a great example of how to do things RIGHT?
"Ecosia is now taking concrete steps to facilitate climate activism. Going forward, all Ecosia employees can engage in climate activism during weekdays – they don’t need to take time off or call in sick. If they incur legal problems, Ecosia will support them and cover any related fees. If reasonable, nonviolent civil disobedience should lead any Ecosia employee to be incarcerated, their time behind bars will be counted as work time."
What do you think? Should your company be following suit?
