As one of the ZB MED's virtual libraries, the online portal GREENPILOT provides a search engine for the fields of nutrition, the environment and agricultural science. The service brings together national and international scientific information and makes it available to users for free through its online search portal.

GREENPILOT is based around a search engine that uses a specially developed search technology. The portal enables users to run comprehensive searches across a variety of databases, with each search simultaneously covering specialist databases, library catalogues, full texts from open access online journals, and more than 1,000 quality-controlled Web links. Search queries are automatically expanded to include multilingual synonyms and related terms drawn from two specialist thesauri. Users are presented with a hit list sorted by relevance.

GREENPILOT is designed to make the texts it links to as accessible as possible. The list of results includes all the information on each publication that is contained in the databases. Wherever possible, the system allows users to simply click on a search result to access the full text. Otherwise the user is presented with an integrated SFX link which allows them to check whether the document is available through their own science library. GREENPILOT offers the additional option of ordering the document through the ZB MED or through a science library included in the Subito document delivery service.