Reducing your digital and carbon footprint with Startpage

At Startpage, we want to help create a sustainable society that is worth living in. We do this by protecting the right to privacy and thus practicing effective and resource-saving data management.

It’s no secret that our main mission at Startpage is to provide the best and most private search results for people worldwide and protect everyone’s universal right to privacy. That is what we have been working on tirelessly since we launched our operations in 2006. But our commitment to contributing positively to society does not stop there. As a business, we also strive to incorporate sustainable practices into our daily operations. 

We are often asked what our approach to sustainability is. And every journey starts with a first step. Here are some of the ways that highlight Startpage’s contribution to sustainability.

Data management that is kind to the environment

Much of what happens on the internet relies on millions of physical servers in data centers across the globe, which require a lot of energy and refrigeration technology to run. A lot of that energy comes from power sources that emit carbon dioxide into the air as they burn fossil fuels.  

Startpage’s focus as a search engine is to protect your personal data. Our approach to data management is effective and sustainable because we don’t collect or store any personal data in the first place. That means that we use fewer resources than non-private search engines, as we don’t have anything to process or organize.

On top of that:

• Our “On Premises”-servers, where we anonymize all search queries and delete all personal information, are based in the Netherlands. And these data centers utilize energy efficient, green technologies.
• We choose to pay more to provide our customers with search results from Google. As a company, Google has been carbon neutral since 2007 and aims to be carbon free by 2030. Google has chosen their data centers—which are responsible for powering products like Search for billions of people 24/7—as the subject of analysis with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation team because data centers generally tend to be material intensive. They are moving to a circular economy model, which is restorative and regenerative by design. Products, components and materials in a circular economy are created to be easily refurbished, repaired, reused and recycled.

The search engine with the least carbon impact

Almost 93% of all internet traffic comes from search engines. Therefore, it’s an easy place to start when thinking about reducing energy and emissions. It’s never advisable to toot our own horn when it comes to these things, so take it from someone else:

A recent analysis from greenspector.com measured the environmental impact of eight different search engines, including Bing, Duckduckgo, Google and Qwant and concluded: “for the least carbon impact, opt for Startpage or Ecosia”. The analysis continues: “Startpage, in addition to having a low impact, is also less “resource-intensive” in memory than the other engines and 2 times less than Ecosia, especially on this use case. Startpage is also the most energy-efficient and 2 times less than Yahoo in the same search scenario.”

Sustainability beyond environmental protection

For Startpage, sustainable development goes beyond protecting the environment. In order to develop our societies in a sustainable manner, we strongly believe that we need to take into account technological, societal and political developments too. Sustainability at Startpage therefore also means digital sustainability. We are committed to contributing to a future in which we as a society would like to live. To achieve this, we must act accordingly now and work towards a positive change from our current status quo – and that includes regaining control of our personal data.

“Data protection, freedom from manipulation and informational self-determination are the basis of free, democratic and peaceful societies – principles which have always been at the core of our business.”

Robert E.G. Beens, Startpage and StartMail Co-founder and CEO

Practicing sustainability in our daily business operations

As a company, we pay attention to sustainability by, for example, interacting completely paperless and holding most meetings with our globally dispersed team online – a practice that was important to us even before the pandemic. 

Pro-tip: If your device has an OLED-screen you can reduce your personal power consumption by up to 30% if you use Startpage in dark mode.