How to run an Ecosia pilot at your workplace
Running a pilot is an essential part of the onboarding process for companies looking to switch to Ecosia.
Are you just getting started with the Ecosia for Companies program? We recommend first having a look at our article “Switching your Company to Ecosia: How it works” which covers all of the steps to successfully implement Ecosia at your workplace. That article will bring you back here in due time.
So what does running a pilot look like? Below you will find useful information regarding the procedure.
We recommend first switching a small number of devices to Ecosia so that your company can start to gather quantitative data about its environmental impact, and qualitative feedback from employees.
The pilot steps:
Step 5a: Implement Ecosia & your reporting typetag
Once your IT team has referred to our technical guides and decided on the right implementation option for your company, we can provide you with a custom reporting typetag.
Your reporting typetag is unique to your organization and is crucial in measuring your impact with us. Depending on your type of implementation, you will find specific information on how to implement this typetag in our technical guides section.
Step 5b: Run the pilot
Once your IT team is ready with the technical configuration and your typetag has been implemented, set a timeframe for the pilot to take place. We recommend getting your IT team to switch 50-100 employees to Ecosia for 1-3 months.
We’ll be right alongside you throughout the pilot and provide you with a report summarizing the environmental impact of employees now using Ecosia.
Step 5c: Evaluate the impact
Towards the end of the pilot, send out a questionnaire to your colleagues involved.
We recommend asking the following questions:
| Question | Answer |
| Do you feel that Ecosia is easy to use? | Yes/No - If no, why? + Open text section |
| Does Ecosia meet your expectations in terms of search results quality? | Yes/No - If no, why? + Open text section |
| How hard was it to switch from your previous search engine to Ecosia? | Very hard, hard, easy, very easy |
| What improvement areas would you suggest to Ecosia as a search engine? | Open text section |
| After testing Ecosia, did you choose to revert to other search engines? | Yes/No - If yes, why? + Open text section |
| How inspired are you by Ecosia’s business model and tree-planting mission? | 1 not inspired 5 very inspired |
| Would you use Ecosia on your personal devices? | Yes/No |
With the results of the pilot and the employee feedback you’ve gathered, you can advocate for rolling out Ecosia to further devices and increase the environmental impact.
Note: You may need to share your results with other stakeholders outside of IT. Keep in mind that the decision on whether to make Ecosia the new standard search engine may need to be escalated to higher levels at your company.
What are the next steps?
A successful pilot is the first step to a successful company-wide rollout. We invite you back to the main article for further information on how to extend Ecosia to further devices and setting up automatic reports.