CWS would like to support employees in their efforts to act more sustainably in their work day. To this end, the company cooperates with Global Exchange for Social Investment, better known as Gexsi.
Gexsi has developed a search engine as well as a browser extension for CWS, which run on climate-neutral servers. Every search query via Gexsi generates revenues that are invested in social enterprises. Social enterprises are companies that want to solve global sustainability challenges with their products and services or want to contribute with their profits to overcome the challenges. A well-known example is "share" water. With every bottle sold, the company donates one day's supply of drinking water to people who live in regions where water is scarce. The CWS parent company Haniel reported.
With Gexsi and the CWS New Tab, CWS employees can support sustainable projects in their daily routines. The effect this can have is shown by this figure: Google alone receives 4.1 million search queries worldwide in one minute.
Use of the search engine is voluntary for CWS employees. However, the company hopes for a great response in order to support as many social enterprises as possible.
Subsidies and alternative financing channels such as donations are very important for social enterprises. For example, foundations and other non-profit organisations are usually unable to support social enterprises for legal reasons, while banks miss guarantees. Social enterprises are not attractive for venture capitalists because the returns are too low.
The revenues generated from the use of the search engine benefit selected social enterprises in the form of donations, investments or support in communication. Who benefits from the support and from how much is communicated transparently. The most important criterion in selecting projects is their contribution to one of the sustainability goals of the United Nations.
Please find further information here.