Looking to ride the tracks of increasing demand for longer distance train travel that’s being fuelled by climate-concerned consumers seeking to shrink the environmental impact of their trips, tree-planting search engine Ecosia and multimodal travel booking platform Omio have partnered to launch what they’re billing as a “tree-planting rail travel booking tool”.

The idea is to make it easier for environmentally conscious Ecosia users who are searching the web for travel options to find and book low carbon train routes for their trips — helping to reduce carbon emissions from less environmentally friendly transport options (like flights) and fund not-for-profit Ecosia’s climate friendly tree-planting projects (and other decarbonization efforts) along the way.

The tie-up works by responding to Ecosia users’ travel keyword searches — in cases where the route can be served by train, such as “London to Cologne” or “Munich to Berlin” — by popping up the “Ecosia Trains” tool (pictured below). The integration lets users search for basic parameters of their journey directly within Ecosia. If they like the results the search returns and decide they do want to take the train the tool will then redirect them to a check-out page on Omio’s platform to make a booking.Given there’s an extra step of being passed from Ecosia’s site to Omio’s to actually do the booking, the tool is perhaps better described as a “tree-planting rail travel search tool”. Certainly it’s not ‘seamless’ one-click booking. But the basic idea is to boost discoverability of low carbon intercity and long haul transport options and ease train trip booking for climate conscious Ecosia users without them having to do the leg work of browsing to Omio’s website (or, indeed, another train trip booking platform such as Trainline) first.

Ecosia said it receives more than two million search enquiries per month for train booking phrases across Europe — which it suggests highlights “clear user demand for easy-to-use, train travel booking tools”.

Globally it notes that around 2.4% of CO2 emissions come from aviation — which it suggests puts an onus on making longer-distance rail journeys easier to book, since taking the train is 90% less carbon intensive on average so switching trips from air to rail can have a major impact in shrinking transport emissions.“Unfortunately, the broader train booking market remains fragmented and by contrast much more straightforward to book a flight knowing you are paying the lowest possible price for your travel,” it also suggests, describing Omio as “one of the only platforms providing consumers with a holistic overview of rail travel options and their price”.

The train search tool is being made available to Ecosia users in 15 countries initially: The UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Norway, USA, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine — which are the markets where Omio has inked partnerships with train providers.

Rail providers whose tickets can be booked via the Omio integration include Amtrak in the US, LNER, GWR, Avanti in the UK, SNCF in France, OBB in Austria and Eurostar for cross-channel services, among others.Ecosia is a not-for-profit so 100% of the profits from the commission it receives from Omio for successful bookings will go directly into its green initiatives — such as tree-planting projects in biodiversity hotspots and areas affected by deforestation, regenerative agriculture projects and investments into renewable energy.

The pair said they hope to expand the tie-up in future — giving the example of the tool also being able to showcase connection options and other more complex travel add-ons directly within Ecosia. “This partnership will hopefully expand in the future,” an Ecosia spokesperson told us, adding: “Omio and Ecosia share views on the importance of promoting train travel.”