If you use search engines (and who doesn’t), here’s a way you can easily find whatever it is you’re looking for and benefit the environment at the same time – without expending an extra ounce of effort.

The Ecosia search engine is powered by Bing’s technology, so it’s a pretty good platform that returns accurate results.

After running a search, if you click on any of the paid/sponsored results (those are provided via Yahoo), Ecosia gets a cut of the revenue.

80% of that revenue goes to the WWF Amazon Initiative, which manages various conservation projects in the region. One of the major projects is support of the world’s largest tropical forest reserve, the Tumucumaque Conservation Landscape in northern Brazil.

Tumucumaque Conservation Landscape is around 38,867 square kilometres (15,006 square miles), substantially larger than the US state of Maryland and around 60% bigger than Hawaii. The region is home to a number of endangered species, including the jaguar.

There are very simple instructions for how to set Ecosia as your default search engine so you don’t need to visit their site to run your searches – you can do so from within your browser’s search box.

While the search results are delivered by Bing and Yahoo, Ecosia’s own infrastructure is run on green power via offsets – so it makes your searching activities a little more environmentally friendly too.

Armchair environmentalism can produce little in the way of real results, but a few cents here and there from the actions of many thousands of users has seen Ecosia raise EUR 906,360 since it launched in 2010 (around USD $1,105,000). Ecosia also publishes financial statements and business reports on a monthly basis to show its users revenue generated is being used as promised.

Using Ecosia for your online searching needs is another simple green action you can take with zero extra effort that can help make a positive difference.