As we know, Australians suffer especially hard from the thin ozone layer. And despite the former government would go with the US president when it came to dealing with climate change, people in Oz have still developed a sense of urgency for the consequences of too much carbon-dioxide and other gases in the atmoshere. On the other hand, I don’t know of any web business model that made it big out of down-under.

Ecocho.com could chance that. They are launching today with the tag line “You search. We grow trees.” in many countries worldwide. The idea is so simple I wonder why I didn’t have it. The site basically is a custom search version of Google and Yahoo. The big ones provide the search technology and deliver the results. Now, the company promises to plant a tree or two for every 1,000 searches performed through their site and offset a ton of CO2 over the lifetime of that tree.

Of course, Ecocho doesn’t plant the trees themselves, they “adopt” them by bying carbon emission offset certificates from Australian authorieis, who, in return, plant the trees. The money for that comes from advertising. It’s now all altruistic though as 30% of the advertising money will stick with Ecocho, 70% will be invested in trees.

Considering the hundreds of millions of searches performed worldwide every day the potential for Ecocho is huge. And if that all works out with the tree adoption scheme it should have some impact on the climate for sure. And because even small contributions count, I’ve put the little search box in my lefthand sidebar. So if the valued reader should disappear from my blog right after reading this, I’ll be happy. He or she is saving the world after all – a least a little bit.

[Disclosure: Ecocho.com is my client at Hotwire. The company belongs to the same holding group as Hotwire.]