Building a ReGenerative Future

Building a ReGenerative Future

ReGeneration Manifesto Vol.01

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY We acknowledge the Arakwal, Widjabul Wai-bal, Ngangbul and Minjungbal people of the Bundjalung Nation who are the Traditional Custodians of this land on which this document was created. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuous relationship to the land and pay our respect to Elders, past, present and emerging.

REGENERATIVE TECHNOLOGIES ARE FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMATIVE, GOING BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY TO TACKLE THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE WORLD’S HARDEST PROBLEMS. THEY GENERATE INEXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCE FLOWS, REPLENISHING MOLECULES RATHER THAN DISPOSING OF THEM.

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MIND-BOGGLING AMBITION IS ANTIFRAGILE, CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR ICONIC COMPANIES AND FUTURE ABUNDANCE.

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REGENERATION MANIFESTO VOL.01

Reimagining the world from the atom up.

BENEATH OUR FEET, FUNGI FORM A VAST NETWORK CRUCIAL FOR SOIL STABILITY AND NUTRIENT DISTRIBUTION, WHILE PLANTS FUEL THEM WITH CARBON. THIS INTRICATE WEB SEQUESTERS A STAGGERING 36% OF THE WORLD’S ANNUAL EMISSIONS, SURPASSING EVEN CHINA’S YEARLY CARBON OUTPUT.

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CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION ABOUT THIS REPORT METHODOLOGY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

16 Building a Regenerative World

42 Building a Regenerative Economy 88 Tools for a Regenerative World

158 Reimagining the World from the Atom Up

32 Building Regenerative Teams 5

164 Bibliography and Further Reading REGENERATION MANIFESTO VOL.01

We are obsessed with the potential for regenerative technologies to enhance and enrich the lives of everyday people, everywhere.

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INTRODUCTION ReGen exists to rebuild the world for the better, rather than alleviate the symptoms of our broken systems. We invest in early-stage regenerative technologies that enable profound transformation – tackling the very root of our challenges – and partner with founders who imagine solutions reaching beyond ‘sustainable’ and towards a transformed future. Regeneration implies channelling resources into self-feeding, self-renewing, and self-sustaining processes that nourish natural systems, which not only survive, but flourish and thrive. By spanning boundaries between agriculture, food, climate, nature, and material systems, we can identify and accelerate the development of disruptive technologies that address the health of our planet as a whole.

“WHEN YOU DANCE ON THE EDGE OF INFINITY, THERE’S ALWAYS ENOUGH ...

BECAUSE YOU AREN’T TAKING OPPORTUNITY FROM ANYONE ELSE, YOU’RE CREATING IT.” – SETH GODIN, REGEN ADVISOR IN THE SONG OF SIGNIFICANCE

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Investment for us is an act of optimism. For every investment we make, we ask ourselves, what does a better future look like, and how does this get us there? How can we nurture agricultural systems that support our growing population, replenish our soils and biodiversity, and restore healthy organic carbon? How can we valorise waste to create resilient, high-quality materials that are valuable for future generations? How can we enable people to live in harmony with the safe operating space of the planet’s resources – rather than despite them? As we tell the story of our impact, past, present and future, we showcase how a combination of courage and ingenuity can catalyse whole systems change – reimagining the world from the atom up.

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

REGENERATIVE FARMING AND PERMACULTURE NEAR OUR HOME IN BUNDJALUNG COUNTRY INTEGRATE TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE WITH MODERN SCIENCE-BASED PRACTICES TO RESTORE AND ENHANCE THE ECOSYSTEM. THESE METHODS FOCUS ON SOIL HEALTH, BIODIVERSITY, AND WATER MANAGEMENT, CREATING RESILIENT AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS.

This piece serves as an artefact to illustrate how our investment decisions can shift critical levers of dynamic systems. We draw inspiration from Thinking in Systems, recognising that complex issues cannot be understood solely through their symptoms or isolated parts. Instead, we focus on these elements’ interconnectedness and dynamic nature, identifying targeted transformations within each area of our investments – agriculture, food, materials, carbon, and nature — that can contribute to a fundamental change in the overarching system.

Success in this pursuit is more ambitious than a score sheet. When we try to encapsulate impact, metrics such as tonnes of carbon drawn down, plastic bags avoided, and gallons of water saved are valuable indicators of progress but not the guiding star for success. Our founders share our vision for transformation at the core of their business. For these generation-defining technologies, we’ve embraced their novelty and their difference and forge forward with a vision of measuring impact in a way that tells the story of positive healing for people and the planet.

This report presents a compelling glimpse into the future of regeneration by unveiling the potential of early-stage companies and mapping their contributions to critical system shifts. We invite you to explore the findings and join us on a journey towards a thriving world.

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METHODOLOGY METHODOLOGY

Fig. 1, Dune formation variations. representative of systems change and the basis for the Regen methodology.

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IDENTIFICATION OF TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

We present the status of each planetary system today and a nonexhaustive list of critical shifts within each system ripe for disruption and transformation. We then map which companies are pulling each lever and which areas we have yet to address. A qualitative analysis captures early-stage companies’ dynamic, category-defining potential by looking beyond traditional metrics. A complete table of these areas is covered on pages 14 and 15.

MAPPING ACROSS THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES:

We categorise each company’s impact zone onto the planetary boundaries framework, demonstrating how their technologies contribute to staying within a safe operating space for life to thrive. This analysis ensures our investments directly support areas where science tells us action is most needed. By bridging these methodologies, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of the transformative potential of early-stage companies. The qualitative analysis highlights their approach to systems-level change, while the research-based framework grounds our reasoning and showcases the importance of their contributions to critical planetary systems.

EMERGENT PROPERTIES – MORE THAN THE SUM OF PARTS:

Throughout this analysis, we recognise that the impacts of these companies extend beyond simply addressing individual shifts. Pulling multiple levers within a system can create positive emergent properties – entirely new outcomes that arise from the complex interplay of individual components. This highlights the true transformative potential of these early-stage players, showcasing their ability to fundamentally reshape systems for a regenerative future.

ALWAYS EVOLVING:

Owing to these companies’ early stages, this report refrains from relying solely on a protocol of quantifiable metrics. As these companies mature and generate measurable data, we will refine and expand our methodology to incorporate these metrics. This report marks the initial step in a continuous process of measuring and demonstrating the transformative impact of our investments.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BUILDING A REGENERATIVE WORLD

FUND I COMMITTED CAPITAL: 42.83 Million USD (Un)Limited Partners spanning 14 countries.

NEW INVESTMENTS IN 2023: FORAY FORAY Bioscience Bioscience Ulysses Ecosystems Banyu Carbon Banyu Future Carbon Future Rhizocore Rhizocore Stealth (TBA) FOLLOW-ON INVESTMENTS: Aigen Series A Burnbot Series A 8 core team members, 10 strategic advisors, 4 technical advisors across Australia, the United States and Europe.

2023 Scope 1 Emissions: 0 tonnes CO2eq.

2023 Scope 2 Emissions: 2 tonnes CO2eq.

ReGen is committed to offsetting our internal emissions through highquality, durable carbon credits purchased from Pachama’s marketplace.

This year we retired credits amounting to 10 tonnes of CO2 by supporting the Manoa Farm in the heart of the Amazon. This project is dedicated to protecting a high-risk ecological corridor from agricultural conversion and timber theft, using regenerative management practices, satellite and on-the-ground monitoring and patrol, the study of endemic species, and environmental education for local communities.

BUILDING REGENERATIVE TEAMS

91 – ReGen’s Founder NPS Our portfolio grew to 17 companies spanning four continents.

18 founders from 12 portfolio companies joined us at our second annual global Founder’s Retreat.

BUILDING A REGENERATIVE ECONOMY

We’ve invested in 5 overlapping planetary systems, with 35 shifts identified as targets to trigger transformational change.

Our portfolio companies have addressed 23 of those shifts.

Our portfolio companies have deployed regenerative technologies to address critical issues in seven out of nine Planetary Boundaries.

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OUR PORTFOLIO FALLS ACROSS 7 OF 9 PLANETARY BOUNDARIES CLIMATE CHANGE

BIOSPHERE INTEGRIT Y

Radiative forcing Increasing risk

CO2 concentration

NOVEL ENTITIES

Genetic

STRATOSPHERIC OZONE DEPLETION

perating spa fe o ce Sa

Functional

ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOL LOADING

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

Freshwater use (Blue water)

Green water

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

FRESHWATER CHANGE

AIGEN ARCH ARKEON ASTERIX BANYU BURNBOT CIRCE CLEAN CROP FACE PLANT FUTURE FORAY PACT RHIZOCORE SEQANA STEALTH MEATI PACHAMA

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P

N

BIOGEOCHEMICAL FLOWS

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GLOBAL FROM DAY ONE →

COMPANIES REGEN TEAM (UN)LIMITED PARTNERS ADVISORS

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS →

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If you are not investing in a regenerative technology, you are, by definition, investing in a degenerative technology. Each 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature can be linked to a 12% decline in global gross domestic product.

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SECTION ONE

16–31

The State of the Planet 23 Regenerative Thesis 25 Why now?

28 How We Invest 30 State of the Market

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BUILDING A REGENERATIVE WORLD

FIG 1, A DISSONANT SYSTEM: CURRENTLY, WE VIEW THE PLANETARY SYSTEMS AS HIGHLY DISORGANIZED AND FRAGMENTED, WITH ECOSYSTEMS AND RESOURCES SCATTERED AND DISCONNECTED. THE LACK OF INTEGRATION LEADS TO WIDESPREAD DYSFUNCTION, ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION, AND INEFFICIENCY.

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THE STATE OF THE PLANET Life, as we know it, is increasingly incompatible with the biophysical realities of the planet.

We live in a time of profound global change.

The climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, and natural resource extraction pose severe threats to the health and well-being of present and future generations. The planetary boundaries framework identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of the Earth system as a whole. All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities, and six of nine have officially exceeded their limits as of September 2023.

“THERE IS SCIENCE NOW TO CONSTRUCT THE STORY OF THE JOURNEY WE HAVE MADE ON THIS EARTH, THE STORY THAT CONNECTS US WITH ALL BEINGS. RIGHT NOW WE NEED TO REMEMBER THAT STORY — TO HARVEST IT AND TASTE IT. FOR WE ARE IN A HARD TIME. AND IT IS KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIGGER STORY THAT IS GOING TO CARRY US THROUGH.” – JOANNA MACY, WORLD AS LOVER, WORLD AS SELF

We can see and feel the signals of a degenerating planet all around us. In July of 2023, NASA recorded the hottest month on record since 1880. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has increased by 50 per cent since pre-industrial levels.

At the same time, the Earth’s species are going extinct one thousand times faster than at any time in history.

The state of the planet — whether it be the heating atmosphere, the acidifying ocean, increasing extinctions, or degraded ecosystems — is an emergent factor of a dysfunctional relationship between human and natural systems.

The Earth is a living planet, and it hosts interwoven natural

systems. It’s no coincidence that in the same timeframe we’ve industrialised, we’ve also lost our innate understanding that human networks are coupled heavily with nature’s systems. The biosphere, atmosphere, ocean, and land interact with our economic and social systems in intricate flows and relationships. Humans have systematised, commodified and exploited natural systems, degrading the Earth and leaving our environment, economy, and population at a crossroads.

While the impacts of our activity are looming as immediate threats, we must avoid the trap of relying on incremental solutions to treat the symptoms of system-level problems alone. The various anthropogenic

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pressures destabilising natural systems mean the full array of emergent consequences is impossible to predict. The progress curve of ‘sustainability’ will flatten over time – increases in efficiency reach diminishing returns even with a steady flow of inputs; as our environment is continually stretched past its limit to restore itself naturally, our stock of resources will also deplete, and even linear growth will cease.

– extractive, linear frameworks which trade the long-term wellbeing of our planet and its inhabitants for short-term returns in the present. Our societal mindframe views the natural world as a machine, separate from humans, rather than a life force fundamental to our existence.

Still, we remain optimistic. Many of the material causes of our planetary crisis are known– fossil fuel emissions, land-use change, deforestation, poverty, oil, corruption, coal, industrial agriculture, and overconsumption.

All have the same origin and impact

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EXTRACTIVE SYSTEMS →

ECOSYSTEM BOUNDARY

OUTPUT

RESOURCE BECOMES SCARCE marginal productivity declines

CONSUMING MORE THAN WE CONTRIBUTE costs and challenge of new resource extraction lead to negative output

Our current climate and biodiversity crises are emergent factors of a system that perpetuates a cycle of extraction, depletion of resources, and fragility.

UNIT OF RESOURCE

SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS →

ECOSYSTEM BOUNDARY

OUTPUT DECLINES to allow resource to recover

OUTPUT

DIMINISHING MARGINAL PRODUCTIVITY

REACHES CARRYING CAPACITY

Sustainable solutions rely heavily on treating the negative externalities of a broken system, making it more robust, rather than solving the fundamental issues in its arrangement.

OUTPUT DEPENDENT on variable and fragile ecosystems short term recovery DOING MORE WITH LESS efficiency gains from technology

UNIT OF RESOURCE

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If you are not investing in a regenerative technology, you are, by definition, investing in a degenerative technology. Each 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature can be linked to a 12% decline in global gross domestic product.

REGENERATIVE SYSTEMS →

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EXPO NEN M A R G T IA L IN A L PROD U CT IV IT Y

OUTPUT

Regenerative technologies produce meaningful outputs that reach far beyond positive externalities – recycling them into increased inputs with lowered cost and minimal extraction, enabling favourable conditions for production to accelerate change. They tackle the root causes rather than symptoms, fully rearranging misaligned systems.

ECOSYSTEM BOUNDARY

CIRCULARITY production output becomes input, new resource extraction trends towards zero UNIT OF RESOURCE

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REGENERATED ECOSYSTEM

ADDITIVE output expands ecosystem capacity

Contributing more than we consume.

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THE REGENERATIVE THESIS At ReGen, our theory of change is to leap beyond an incremental approach and relentlessly focus on solutions that push exponential transformation.

JUST OFF THE COAST OF THE REGEN HEADQUARTERS, WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WATCH, WITH A GREAT DEAL OF JOY, THE INCREDIBLE RECOVERY OF THE EASTERN AUSTRALIAN WHALE POPULATION AS THEY MIGRATE EACH YEAR. A TESTAMENT TO THE RESILIENCE OF SPECIES AND THE POWER OF REGENERATION, HUMPBACK POPULATIONS HAVE RECOVERED FROM A DWINDLING 100 AT THE CRUX OF THE WHALING INDUSTRY, TO OVER 35,000 AS OF 2023.

Regeneration recognises the complex and beautiful interactions between climate, nature, and human wellbeing. It is the consumptive structures of our systems that lead to unimaginable global crises, rather than the individual components.

Regenerative technologies rearrange these relationships to create antifragile systems, where climate-positive, nature-positive, socially-positive, and economically-positive are symbiotic and multiplicative. Regenerative systems produce meaningful outputs that reach far beyond positive externalities – recycling them into increased inputs with lowered cost and minimal extraction, enabling favourable conditions for production to accelerate both transformation and returns.

Most of all, regeneration starts with a desire to contribute more value than we consume in all aspects of life. The global and societal challenges that we experience today cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them. It means daring to reimagine our human and planetary systems flowing together in harmony.

We must not simply confront this impending reality, but instead reimagine an entirely new model that renders the old one obsolete.

It’s easily identifiable that traditional models rely on extraction, but even those touted as ‘sustainable’ trend

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towards hitting net-zero on finite resources, coupling themselves to scarcity rather than departing from a world where output is inextricably linked to decreasing quality of inputs. Such approaches have not only depleted our finite resources but will also become economically unfeasible, stifling growth.

How can we scale growth without proportionally increasing input extraction and costs?

The answer lies in decoupling our growth from centuries-old practices of resource degradation. Facing planetary challenges of immense

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proportions, we require solutions that match the vastness and urgency of these problems – Regenerative technologies tackle the root causes of our planetary crises. They sustain themselves on inexhaustible resource flows, recycling molecules rather than disposing of them.

Beyond healing and positive externalities, they expand ecosystem value, reinforcing their productivity in positive feedback loops. By utilising inputs that can be renewed or regenerated, these technologies not only avoid escalating costs and the inevitable decline in marginal productivity but are also designed to create more than they consume—to restore and expand. This philosophy underpins their ability to deliver superlinear returns.

We define regenerative technologies not only for their net-positive environmental impacts but through this economic lens. The economic shift to regeneration is crucial for catalysing economies of scale, fostering sustained growth, and igniting network effects and

virtuous cycles—dynamics that reduce input costs, widen markets for complementary technologies, and hasten their adoption, leading to transformative impacts. This capacity for exponentially viable scaling is even more crucial because it enables these technologies to quickly outpace traditional incumbents. They aren’t just competing on a cost basis; they are redefining the very economics of production.

The path forward is clear.

We have the astounding opportunity to foster and invest in regenerative technologies.

The challenge is immense, but the potential is even greater. It’s a unique moment where we not only can respond to planetary challenges, but to transform our responses into sources of sustained growth and innovation. At ReGen, we’re investing in a future where abundance isn’t just possible, but the very foundation of a planet that thrives as it grows.

“SOME THINGS BENEFIT FROM SHOCKS; THEY THRIVE AND GROW WHEN EXPOSED TO VOLATILITY, RANDOMNESS, DISORDER, AND STRESSORS AND LOVE ADVENTURE, RISK AND UNCERTAINTY.” – NASSIM TALEB, ANTIFRAGILE

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WHY NOW? A CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES IS SET TO TRANSFORM TOMORROW Our moment will not be defined by navigating challenges but rather by the tools that allow us to overcome them. We’re at the cliff edge of an inflexion point, where technological convergence enables us to rebuild our world and deliver an abundant and just future.

Technology has always been a transformative force, from the steam engine’s industrial revolution to the internet’s digital age. But we stand on the cusp of something more profound: a convergence of disruptive technologies promising exponential leaps in artificial intelligence (AI), synthetic biology, robotics, renewables, and energy storage.

THIS SYNERGY OFFERS NOT JUST INCREMENTAL CHANGE BUT A POTENTIAL OVERHAUL OF OUR WORLD: SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY is moving us from mere understanding to actively manipulating biological complexities.

This shift has the potential to redefine the boundaries of biology, transitioning it from a natural to an engineering science, which could dramatically reshape the global economic landscape, enabling the deep study and biomimicry of nature to support regeneration.

ROBOTICS, too, is set to transform the economic horizon, with forecasts suggesting a market valuation exceeding billions in the near future. Automation by robotics transcends conventional sectoral

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limits, enhancing productivity and efficiency and addressing largescale challenges from energy deployment to environmental conservation, expanding our operational capacities beyond traditional human labour limitations.

Transitioning to RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ADVANCED ENERGY STORAGE signifies more than technological advancement; it represents a fundamental shift in our civilisation’s energy foundation. This transition challenges established industrial and political interests, redistributes global power structures and confronts pressing ecological crises.

It stabilises energy markets, reducing dependency on unpredictable fossil fuel supplies and facilitating a transition to a decentralised, resilient energy infrastructure.

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In many ways, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE stands as a vital arbiter of the revolution and a catalyst across myriad domains, enabling unprecedented levels of industry reformation, labour reconfiguration, and societal restructuring. By harnessing advanced computing, machine learning, and robotics, AI reimagines our potential for decision-making, analysis, and creativity, presenting profound shifts in our economic structures and social constructs.

EACH INNOVATION HOLDS IMMENSE POTENTIAL IN ITS OWN RIGHT. TOGETHER, THEY’RE MULTIPLICATIVE. Like pulling multiple “transformational levers” simultaneously, this convergence creates cascading effects and exponential growth. The opportunity is astounding, and the markets produced by technologies of this nature are compounding rapidly; AI is projected to contribute an explosive $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, while the robotics market is set to surge past $260 billion by 2030. These are fragments of a much larger story, where patterns of the same exponential trends that fueled past disruptions are again visible, accelerating progress and deployment while rapidly driving down costs. Moore’s Law predicted the doubling of chip performance every two years, and Wright’s Law predicted exponential cost reductions through production and deployment.

Buckminster Fuller coined our end state as ‘Ephemeralization’ – where we are able to “do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”.

Disruption is also an intrinsic quality of the economy driven by regenerative

technologies, where growth and positive externalities move in virtuous cycles at an unprecedented rate.

As we witness the convergence of revolutionary technologies like artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, robotics, renewable energy, and battery storage, we must recognise the potential for exponential change within individual sectors and across the entire spectrum of human activity.

Relatively mature regenerative technologies have followed the same curves, telling a story of breathtaking progress: solar panel costs have plummeted over 90% in just a decade, with wind turbines following suit. Lithium-ion battery costs have fallen by almost 20% for every cumulative doubling of capacity since 1991. The field of genomics and genome sequencing has witnessed an annualised improvement that is far faster than 41%.

Regenerative technologies overlap with and are enabled by stacking these disruptive advancements; they follow the same patterns and offer an even greater opportunity for systemic transformation. When regenerative technologies converge, they create a powerful feedback loop, driving exponential progress towards a healthier planet. AI meticulously optimises renewable energy grids, maximising efficiency and severing our dependence on fossil fuels. Robots, powered by clean energy, reforest devastated landscapes and decontaminate polluted sites. Biomimicry inspires self-healing materials that mend infrastructure and revitalise ecosystems. Renewables generate energy without depleting resources, and batteries store this energy for resilient grids.

Advancements in complementary technology expand the other’s market, ceaselessly driving one

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Disruption is also an intrinsic quality of the economy driven by regenerative technologies.

”YOU NEVER CHANGE THINGS BY FIGHTING THE EXISTING REALITY. TO CHANGE SOMETHING, BUILD A NEW MODEL THAT MAKES THE EXISTING MODEL OBSOLETE.” – R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

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another’s costs down through expanding demand and deployment on both ends. These technologies will unlock latent demand and create new markets, just like the unforeseen economic opportunities unleashed by the revolution in personal computing. The history of technological advancements reveals a recurring pattern: the underestimation of disruptive technologies’ capacity to replace existing industries and create entirely new economic sectors and models. At the end of the day, market needs are often a lagging indicator of technological progress.

unparalleled opportunity, with the potential for significant returns and a more prosperous, healthier life for humanity and the planet upon which we depend.

Our future requires a new perspective that integrates technological advancement with ecological realities. This convergence signifies a profound shift, not just in scientific advancement but in a redefinition of our obligation to the planet. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, human intervention can become one of healing and rejuvenation. Investing in these nascent technologies presents an

At ReGen, we’re unwavering in our commitment to identifying and nurturing regenerative technologies that drive planetaryscale transformation and generate generational returns. This is the most meaningful investment opportunity of our lifetime. By taking inspiration from nature, amplifying it with creative capacity and growing it with capital, we can turn what was once sci-fi into sci-fact. The seemingly impossible, becomes possible.

As we embrace this journey, we face the chance to redefine our relationship with the planet, fostering anti-fragile economies and systems that provide long-term, sustainable value. This is the promise of regenerative technologies, where the synergy of breakthrough innovations offers a path to a radically different and improved future.

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HOW WE INVEST OUR INVESTMENT PROCESS IS DRIVEN BY SYSTEMS THINKING: A system is more than the sum of its parts.

Emergent behaviours are intrinsic to the system itself, and they arise from permutations of both the organisation and the components of the system. When we look for solutions to limit warming, halt biodiversity loss, and secure a healthier more just society, we search for transformative, ambitious ideas on how to address the upstream relationships and misalignments that lead to the intertwined critical issues of the 21st century – rather than providing a panacea for the behaviours of a broken system. →

TRANSFORMATIVE, NOT INCREMENTAL: We believe Venture Capital exists to find and fund transformative, step change innovation that unlock a surge of latent consumer demand, rather than settling for short-term, incremental advancements. Lately, the focus has shifted towards minor, less impactful innovations (like enhancing pizza delivery services), diverting from the fundamental mission of fostering groundbreaking changes. The pressing nature of planetary crises underscores the need for regenerative solutions, which, despite their nascent stages and the absence of a fully developed market, are grounded in a clear logic that anticipates future consumer demand. With every company we process, we consistently question whether a prospective investment lays the groundwork for a truly regenerative future and whether there are emerging indicators of market readiness that could escalate the idea from concept to tangible impact. This approach ensures we not only invest in potential but also in practical pathways to significant benefits for both people and planet. →

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WE CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO BY EMBEDDING REGENERATIVE PRINCIPLES INTO OUR INVESTMENT APPROACH, AIMING FOR SYSTEMIC, LONGTERM VALUE CREATION AND RELATIONSHIPS OVER SHORTTERM GAINS.

SYMBIOTIC: SYSTEMS-CHANGE REQUIRES A PORTFOLIO AND INTERDIMENSIONAL APPROACH Transformation arises from deep, collaborative shifts in how we perceive and structure our systems. Rather than relying solely on isolated interventions, impactful change often results from small, strategic adjustments within various parts of a complex system. These adjustments can synergize, leading to significant overall change.

While each investment in our portfolio stands on its own, viewing them collectively allows us to understand how these individual pieces can orchestrate broader transformations, moving strategic levers across different areas in tandem. →

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REWRITING THE RULES: EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE, WITH EXCEPTIONALLY AMBITIOUS IDEAS We believe people are a power law. The best ones change everything. We only want to work with extraordinary people building extraordinary businesses. Our founders are relentless in their pursuit of excellence and mission to change the world. We invest in founders who are up to the task of reengineering what’s possible in protecting the world from climate change.

They’re unwavering in their commitment to change, dogged in their pursuit of building their company, and always willing to stand for what’s right. Our founders believe in creating a better future for the communities they serve and the industries they seek to change. Attracting the highest quality people to our mission creates a self-reinforcing, positive feedback loop that attracts more talented people to the mission like moths to a flame. ○

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STATE OF THE MARKET: INVESTMENT DOWN, RESILIENCE UP In 2023, the climate-tech sector tested its resilience amidst challenging conditions in the broader VC market. According to BloombergNEF, climate-tech companies secured an impressive $51 billion in venture capital and private equity funding through over a thousand deals. Total global investment in the energy transition soared to $1.8 trillion—a 17% increase from the previous year, marking a new record.

HIGHLIGHTS: A MATURING MARKET:

289 climate tech companies have exited via mergers and acquisitions, SPAC, and IPO since 2020. Of the 150 disclosed exits, $400 billion in total enterprise value has been realised. Climate tech exits have increased by 70% year on year since 2021.

SUBSTANTIAL DRY POWDER FOR CLIMATE:

CTVC recorded $41 billion of remaining investable dry powder (excluding infrastructure funds) from closed, climate-specialised funds. Final numbers for 2023 show a record $83 billion in new assets under management in 2023, exceeding the previous year by 23%. New types of investors are joining climate funds – record numbers of growth equity, private equity, and infrastructure funds were announced in Q4 2023.

DEEP TECH LEAPS AHEAD:

Traditional venture dynamics typically favour software or ventures with low capital expenditure. However, in 2023, half of all deals counted by CTVC involved capital-intensive “physical” climate tech companies, including hardware, deep tech, biotech, and infrastructure development. Evidence shows that deep tech and life science companies actually exit 10-25% faster than their traditional counterparts, and are twice as likely to achieve exits exceeding $250 million USD.

GROWING SHARE OF PRIVATE INVESTMENT LANDSCAPE:

Despite an overall decline in venture investment, climate tech’s share of the private market equity and grants reached 11.4% in Q3 2023 and is projected to hit 10% for the year.

RESILIENCE AMIDST SECTORAL CHALLENGES:

Segments of economic sectors with a climate-oriented focus displayed consistent growth, even when other areas faced stagnation. Notable examples include renewable energy’s growth within power generation and the dominance of electric vehicles in the transport sector, reflecting the resilience and intrinsic value of regenerative-tech companies despite macro-conditions.

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Total global investment in the energy transition soared to $1.8 trillion.

POLICY SUPPORT AND NEW FRONTIERS:

Policy support and climate-related spending are poised to achieve record highs, signalling a significant shift in investment priorities. According to the IEA, for every USD 1 spent on fossil fuels, USD 1.7 is now allocated to clean energy—an indication of the evolving landscape. Notably, government funding has played a pivotal role in shaping the innovation landscape, with 4 out of the top 10 climate-tech fundraising rounds receiving government backing in the last two years. Furthermore, momentum is building in biodiversity and nature-related investments, exemplified by the release of guidelines by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures in September 2023.

MARKET RECOVERY AND RESET:

Positive indications of a market recovery and realignment towards sustained growth emerged in the latter half of 2023. Q3 saw a substantial infusion of capital, with USD 16.6 billion invested—marking the most successful fundraising quarter in nearly two years. Concurrently, funding from VC and PE firms surged by 63% during the same period, underlining a renewed investor confidence in sustainable ventures.

URGENT NEED FOR ACTION:

Despite encouraging developments, the imperative to scale regenerative technologies has never been more pressing. The current decarbonization rate stands at a mere 2.5%, significantly below the requisite 17.2% annual rate needed to cap global warming at 1.5°C. Swift and decisive action is imperative to bridge this gap and avert the worsening impacts of climate change.

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SECTION TWO

32–41

Introduction 36 Founder well-being 38 Founder’s Retreat 40 A Conversation with Sacha Schmitz, Co-Founder, Arch 35

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BUILDING REGENERATIVE TEAMS

FIG 2, FIRST MOVEMENTS: INITIAL EFFORTS TO RESTORE AND CONNECT ECOSYSTEMS BEGIN, FORMING SMALL, LOCALIZED POCKETS OF REGENERATION. WHILE SOME AREAS SHOW SIGNS OF RECOVERY, THE OVERALL PLANETARY SYSTEMS REMAIN LARGELY FRAGMENTED AND IN NEED OF FURTHER INTEGRATION.

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Founders create the conditions for their teams to thrive ...

BUILDING REGENERATIVE TEAMS

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BUILDING REGENERATIVE TEAMS

REGEN ADVISOR SETH GODIN WITH DIEGO SAEZ-GIL (CO FOUNDER, PACHAMA) AND TALENT ACQUISTION EXPERT DOLLY SINGH AT THE REGEN GLOBAL FOUNDERS RETREAT IN CALIFORNIA 2022.

Regenerative technology companies are led by founders with wild ambition and indomitable will, on a mission to deliver their life’s work in the name of our planet. Their ambition for the cause, not for themselves, ensures they are a beacon that attracts the world’s brightest and most creative talent.

These multi-disciplinary teams see potential over problems and design from first principles, inspired by nature to transform systems.

Regenerative teams attract, amplify and challenge people who desire to make an impact – change is the essence of the work. The most committed and skilled people come together to embrace uncertainty and to do work that matters in an environment where they can thrive collectively on a path to significance.

Founders create the conditions for their teams to thrive, the conditions for a culture where humans are treated as people and not as ‘resources’ and where it’s possible to create resilient human-centric companies that we’re proud of. In this way we create regenerative teams that excel and evolve long after their leaders have moved on, successfully creating iconic multi-generational companies that restore our planet.

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FOUNDER WELL-BEING AS A NORTH STAR Over the last year we’ve zeroed in on founder wellbeing as a core tenant of our portfolio support offering. Founders are the linchpin of any startup, disproportionately impacting success or failure; therefore, they will always be our highest priority.

In 2023, we launched the Founders Foundations program to equip founders with the tools to navigate and thrive on their founder journey and build the community to support and challenge them as they grow. While most venture firms focus their support solely on high-level tactics and strategy, ReGen is filling the gap in support for the foundations that underpin those second-order activities.

STEFAN GÖNNER (CO FOUNDER OF SEQANA) WITH DAN CAVANAUGH (CO FOUNDER OF CLEAN CROP) AT THE REGEN GLOBAL FOUNDERS RETREAT 2022.

A recent study from Startup Snapshot revealed that 72% of founders report that entrepreneurship has impacted their mental health. Still, only 23% have sought help or have seen a psychologist to discuss the issues facing them. 81% report that they do not openly share their stress, fears, and challenges, while 50% report a negative stigma around professional mental health support.

differentiates us from other investors and proactively builds founder resilience and performance.

Only 10% of founders report talking to their investors about their stressors. Consistent with ReGen’s mission to be a trusted partner, we are building a world-class support program for founders that

Our platform offers quarterly Founder Forums with experienced operators, including Canva cofounder Cameron Adams and Apeel founder James Rogers and an annual in-person Founder Retreat

We think healthy, well-rounded founders are better equipped than their peers to lead and execute the long-term vision required to build a truly iconic company. We are investing to help them fulfil their potential and live healthy, spectacular lives.

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PARKER, ALEX AND TOM FROM TEAM REGEN WITH ARKEON FOUNDER GREGOR TEGL AND AIGEN CO FOUNDER KENNY LEE AT THE REGEN GLOABL FOUNDERS RETREAT 2022.

bringing together our entire portfolio alongside experts and special guests like marketing guru Seth Godin, Rivian founder RJ Scaringe, Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown, and many more. We facilitate founder 1:1 paired support conversations, allowing founders to work through both shared and idiosyncratic challenges with their peers and provide founders with access to an elite roster of curated coaches and professional support experts such as Alex Auerbach (Senior Director of Wellness and Development at NBA team the Toronto Raptors), Jerry Colonna and Ali Schultz (Reboot), and Chip Richards (Olympic and leadership coach).

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We’re already starting to see the impact of our programs: our latest founder NPS score is 91 (Bain & Company, developers of the NPS methodology, rate an NPS of 50+ as Excellent and 80+ as World Class).

Additionally, founders who attended our founder retreat last year are returning this year and—citing the value they experienced last year— are bringing their co-founders and senior executives along with them.

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ANNUAL GLOBAL FOUNDER’S RETREAT

GREGOR TEGL (CO FOUNDER ARKEON) AND YUDI DING (CO FOUNDER, PACT) COOKING ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS TOGETHER AT THE REGEN GLOBAL FOUNDERS RETREAT 2022.

The Founders Retreat has become a pivotal date on the ReGen annual calendar where we are privileged to be surrounded by incredible ambition and talent. We are humbled to be able to bring these founders together to connect, explore the bounds of possibility, and align toward our shared mission to restore the planet from the atom up. It is also an opportunity for our founders to regenerate themselves for the year ahead. In early October, ReGen hosted 44 of our founders, strategic advisors, and a few special guests at our second Global Founders Retreat in Napa Valley, California. All of our founders who joined us in 2022 returned for a second year, with many bringing their co-founders. We also introduced some recent additions to the ReGen portfolio to the broader group.

IN 2023, WE WERE JOINED BY: Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, shared his mission to remove animals from human diets, his founding journey at Impossible, and the myriad lessons he’s learned along the way.

Rather than focus on “winning” market share away from incumbents (e.g., Pepsi Versus Coke), the Play Bigger team demonstrated that the companies that dominate are the ones who create and design their own category (e.g., Red Bull).

Jerry Colonna, founder of Reboot. io, author of Reboot and Reunion, and coach to Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs, led an immersive session with our founders that highlighted similarities in the founder experience and the benefits of sharing these challenges with others.

RJ Scaringe, founder of Rivian, put the exclamation point on our retreat with an intimate fireside chat with Rose Marcario. RJ’s clarity of vision, mission, and pragmatic execution were profound. RJ is a truly generational founder. RJ shared a key insight with us: “We are so lucky to be alive at this moment where technology, talent, and the pace of change are converging exponentially. Let’s build the future together!”

Al Ramadan from Play Bigger (author of the book Play Bigger) led our teams through an interactive workshop on category design.

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WHETHER ITS PLAYING SPIKE BALL, PICKLE BALL OR RUNNING WORKSHOPS OUTSIDE, THE REGEN TEAM LOVES MAXIMISING TIME IN NATURE WITH OUR FOUNDERS. PICTURED RIGHT, DAN FITZGERALD MANAGING PARTNER OF REGEN CLOSING OUT THE 2023 RETREAT.

We have received positive feedback from our founders on both of our retreats which leaves us with no doubt in the value of hosting these for years to come. Some of the founder feedback includes: “Creating these containers and thoughtfully, organically and proactively matching up Founders with other founders, mentors and coaches that can support their specific personal and professional growth and health needs is the greatest gift ReGen can give and it will continue to expand the abundance flywheel for all!”

“ReGen Founders retreats are on a beautiful trajectory. Please keep trusting the emergent and deep listening process for what founders need and can utilise to make them healthier and more effective. Thank you!”

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FOUNDER Q&A: SACHA SCHMITZ (CO-FOUNDER) — ARCH Could you tell us the story of your founder experience, starting from founding Whispli into working on complex bottlenecks to decarbonising the built environment at Arch?

As a founder and leader, my goal has always been to tackle the bottlenecks in our organisation, tackling them first myself and then hiring the best team to take over and do it 10x better than me. This approach led me to step away from Whispli once we grew to ~35 employees and operations became smooth, feeling I had made myself redundant as my ability to contribute diminished as the team grew.

Living in Sydney during the devastating natural disasters of 2020 spurred a reevaluation of my career focus, pushing me towards dedicating my efforts to combat climate change.

This path wasn’t straightforward; it took months of exploration within the climate and software intersection before identifying the impactful role of residential heating and cooling. My engagement with a climate-focused network of founders, advisors, and operators (OnDeck Climate) helped clarify my direction.

A pivotal moment came when I met Phil, a MSc & MBA from Stanford studying HVAC systems. He highlighted that residential heating and cooling account for a significant portion of

emissions (~10%), pointing out the potential to address a gigaton of CO2 equivalent annually by electrifying home heating and cooling systems.

That 1Gt goal was a must for me but it wasn’t trivial to find where software could meaningfully move the needle.

Together with Phil, we chose to focus on heat pumps, a mature technology that could be rapidly deployed to reduce emissions but was hindered by supply-side bottlenecks, particularly inefficiencies among contractors. By addressing these inefficiencies, we aimed to make heat pump installation more efficient and cost-effective for homeowners, thereby facilitating wider adoption and contributing to climate change mitigation.

The potential for software to catalyse significant impact excited me and was quite a unique opportunity.

What key tactics or insights did the experience of building a successful startup from the ground up bring to the founding of Arch?

Investing in your co-founder relationship is key. Too often, founding teams have serendipitous beginnings and rarely do they do the necessary due diligence on one another. Aligning value sets and conducting thorough due diligence at the beginning are essential steps. Phil and I

Sacha Schmitz co-founded Arch with Phillip Krinner in 2022. Leveraging over 15 years of experience in software engineering, design, and strategy, he’s now focusing on climate-tech after previously founding Whispli, a platform for whistleblowers supported by major investors like YCombinator and Blackbird. The Arch team aims to rapidly accelerate the electrification of heating and cooling to eliminate residential emissions. We caught up with Sacha to get his take as a repeat founder applying software to planetary problems.

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dedicated over 30 hours to interviewing each other using the First Round Questions for CoFounders before deciding to partner up, ensuring we had a solid foundation for collaboration.

I can’t overstate enough the significance of finding a co-founder with whom you can openly discuss the toughest topics. It’s vital to partner with someone empathetic, skilled in communication, and adept at both giving and receiving feedback. Often, the emphasis is placed on hard skills, but I’ve learned that soft skills are crucial for building a positive company culture that employees will embrace.

Another lesson for climate space founders is the inherently collaborative nature of the climate tech community. Given our shared mission, the success of one is viewed as a victory for all. I encourage reaching out to others in the field, regardless of their perceived status, as many are eager to assist fellow missiondriven entrepreneurs. A simple phone call can accelerate your learning curve significantly.

Lastly, when seeking funding, prioritise investors with firsthand experience in building companies. They understand the challenges of starting up, are willing (and capable!) to provide tactical tips and they also understand that success doesn’t happen overnight.

When you think of your experience so far, have there been any pivotal moments of support that you’ve received that were crucial to your founder journey?

I immediately think of my partner, Ash, who has been my most significant supporter. Her role as a co-parent and partner has been foundational to where I’m at right now. Also, having her be okay with me having zero income for 12 months to figure out my next step is what enabled me to be on this journey. And I know that’s a huge privilege.

The importance of a supportive network also stands out. During OnDeck or YC, more than the workshops or the events, the relationships I formed there is what lasted over the last few years. Most of the content is available online but nothing replaces the curation of these networks.

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Being part of a portfolio of companies, such as with ReGen, has provided a sense of solidarity, knowing that others face similar challenges. It feels good to know there’s a set of people who know what you’re going through and it’s also gratifying to be able to help others by sharing our own experiences.

I’ve learned the importance of curating a diverse and high-quality network, encompassing scientists, investors, researchers, and policy advocates. This diversity provides me with a comprehensive perspective on challenges, making the network I’ve built an invaluable asset to my founder journey.

You deal with an incredibly complex segment of the climate-tech ecosystem – deployment. Amongst the complexity, what keeps you optimistic about the future of decarbonisation?

The amazing team that we have built is what keeps me optimistic about the future. It’s always possible to break down a problem, however big and challenging, in smaller bits. Then, thinking with first principles in mind, you make small, yet meaningful progress day by day - they end up compounding. Assembling a diverse team of first believers, for whom no problem is too big or too difficult is what gives me confidence in our ability to address this complex segment.

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SECTION THREE

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Agriculture and Land Use 52 Food Systems 58 Materials and Products 68 Nature 78 Carbon and Climate

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BUILDING A REGENERATIVE ECONOMY

FIG 3, BROADER ORGANISATION: EFFORTS TO CONNECT AND HARMONIZE ECOSYSTEMS RESULT IN MORE COHESIVE NETWORKS. RESOURCE FLOW AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IMPROVE SIGNIFICANTLY, ALTHOUGH SOME AREAS STILL REQUIRE ADDITIONAL ATTENTION TO ACHIEVE FULL REGENERATION.

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AGRICULTURE AND LAND USE The farming revolution, a shift in our subsistence as hunter-gatherers to agrarian settlers dependent on the domestication of plants and animals, began around 12,000 years ago. Our cities and civilisations grew from agriculture and, from it, the roots of our trade, industry, and way of being.

Agriculture has been the nurturing hand rocketing the development of our species from a mere five million nomadic travellers to the staggering 9.7 billion people projected to dwell on Earth in 2050.

In a fraction of this time, for the past two thousand years, cities, modern agricultural practices and deforestation have dramatically altered the natural cycles supporting all planetary life. Industrial production has become the mainstay of agriculture.

Industrial agriculture is a fundamentally extractive activity.

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INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE: THE STATUS QUO Industrial agriculture is a fundamentally extractive activity. It unsustainably draws on human, material and natural capital to increase yields. Modern farming practices feed plants with chemical forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, replacing soils and insects with monoculture, machinery, and chemical inputs to obtain increasingly large quantities of outputs to feed a growing population.

Our practices have depleted soil fertility, resulting in a negative feedback loop, where more artificial inputs are required to maintain these yields without the complexity of living elements which make up the multifaceted system that is living soil. As the soils deteriorate, so does plant health, and crops are more susceptible to insects, whose natural predators vanish from pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, fungicides, and antibiotics use.

Soil – home to some of Earth’s most complex living systems – has been transformed into lifeless dirt. Fields were ploughed and exposed to air, and carbon was oxidised into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Since the dawn of farming, an estimated 133 gigatons - 133 billion tons - of the original carbon stock in the Earth’s soil has been re-released into the atmosphere. Industrial tillage has also killed off endemic, beneficial organisms, leaving the earth devoid of vitamins, minerals, and microbes that make their way into our food chains. The vivid diversity of plant, bird, insect, and microbial life supported by these habitats has become scarce. Pesticides and

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herbicides killed off tiny ecosystems that once thrived in soil, reducing land to deserts supporting only a small handful of domesticated plants. The result is a system highly specialised in a few commodities— primarily destined for processed food, ethanol, and animal feed— that depend on synthetic fertilisers, insecticides, and herbicides to adapt to nutrient-starved soils. The human impact is equally dire – cancer, Parkinson’s, and suicides among American farmers are amongst the highest of any profession in the world.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS TO ENABLE REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS: The benefits of regenerating farms, forests, and grasslands are incalculable – to all people and all life on the planet. Rooted in the idea of maximising the health of soil ecosystems, this playbook of agronomic principles strives for a high standard of land management to sequester carbon in the soil, maintain and prioritise the welfare of farm animals and fairness for farmers and workers. Regenerative agriculture avoids myopically focusing on yield maximisation and strives to foster life, biological diversity, human and animal health, plant vigour, and pollinator viability.

RESTORING SOIL HEALTH AND MINIMISING DISTURBANCE TO EXISTING SOIL:

The base premise of regenerative agriculture is to reorient our farming framework to focus on soil health. By focusing on feeding and preserving the biological structures that bacteria, fungi, and other soil microbes build underground, growers can support the carbon-sequestering ecosystems within healthy soil. Globally, soils can store between 1.5 to 5.5 billion tons of carbon a year – more than is contained in the atmosphere and all of the Earth’s plant biomass. In just the US, scientists estimate that domestic rangelands – commonly grazed by livestock – could sequester up to 330 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in their soils, equivalent to 70 million cars driven for a year.

Beyond carbon, regenerative agricultural practices, such as holistically managed grazing, no-till farming, and cover cropping, come with a host of co-benefits – including a vast increase in soil organic matter, which serves as a reservoir of nutrients and water into the ground. Increases in soil matter can trigger increases in microbial activity, water infiltration, biodiversity, and protection against soil compaction.

ELIMINATING CHEMICAL INPUTS TO AGRICULTURE:

A regenerative agricultural system relies on preserving the health of soil and soil ecosystems. To support soil health, toxic, synthetic fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides must be eliminated. Precision agriculture technologies will support low-tillage and no-tillage techniques, which avoid disturbing delicate biological networks below ground. Solutions will be adopted for monitoring, seeding, treating, weeding, and harvesting crops in a less invasive way that is in harmony with nature.

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“SITTING AT OUR BACK DOORSTEPS, ALL WE NEED TO LIVE A GOOD LIFE LIES ABOUT US. SUN, WIND, PEOPLE, BUILDINGS, STONES, SEA, BIRDS AND PLANTS SURROUND US. COOPERATION WITH ALL THESE THINGS BRINGS HARMONY, OPPOSITION TO THEM BRINGS DISASTER AND CHAOS.” – BILL MOLLISON, INTRODUCTION TO PERMACULTURE

DEPLOYING PRECISION FARMING FOR RESOURCE EFFICIENCY AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION:

Precision farming techniques incorporate advanced technology like artificial intelligence, GPS guidance systems, remote sensing, eDNA sequencing, and data analytics to optimise agricultural practices – enabling targeted and efficient resource utilisation. Through precise monitoring and application of inputs, this approach promotes sustainable land management, fostering healthier habitats for various species and promoting biodiversity within agricultural landscapes.

MAXIMISING BIODIVERSITY BY INTEGRATING DIVERSE CROP ROTATIONS AND ELIMINATING MONOCULTURES:

This method promotes healthier soil, reduces pest and disease pressures, enhances nutrient cycling, and fosters a more resilient ecosystem.

Ultimately, integrating diverse crop rotations supports biodiversity, sustains soil health, and contributes to more sustainable and resilient agricultural practices.

REDUCE LAND-USE CONVERSION FOR AGRICULTURE:

It is essential to acknowledge that the increasing demand for any form of agriculture by our growing population will always come with land-use tradeoffs. To satisfy the global demand for animal products, synthetic biology (SynBio) companies replicating animal and plant cells for food systems will be necessary to stymie biodiversity loss by replacing land, water, species, and chemical-intensive supply chains.

CREATE PATHWAYS TO IMPROVED GROWER LIVELIHOODS:

In the future, we envision a world where natural capital exchanges go far beyond selling raw yields and even the sale of credits for sequestered carbon to offer holistic biodiversity and ecosystem services and revenue streams for growers.

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A CONVERSATION WITH KENNY LEE, CO-FOUNDER, AIGEN Our planet is craving systems-defying solutions that disrupt the status quo. You’ve built incredibly successful companies before, but Aigen has transformational ambitions.

How did the vision for solar-powered, AIdriven robots combating chemical use in agriculture take root?

After successfully exiting my first startup in the cybersecurity space, I went back to school to figure out what the biggest planetary challenges are, and landed on climate. In the world of climate tech there is no bigger industry than agriculture – it impacts us all on a huge, systems-thinking level, and yet for most of us is a black box. This lends itself to the question how can we use all the new technologies, from data to robotics, to support nature - to help our ecological systems to accelerate? It’s in this way that we can regenerate the planet.

Regenerative agriculture will play a large role. We can grow things differently. Farmers could introduce livestock and multi-cropping poly-agriculture, but when you dig deeper, the reality is that most of the world does not operate using regenerative agricultural methods yet.

So there has to be some forcing function to accelerate that transition. For any solution we build we have to start from a position of trust

with the farmers. We have to ask ourselves, what are the tools and techniques we can build to help farmers transition into that? And that is why Aigen is solving the number one problem farmers are asking us to solve – which is other crops invading their cash crops they grow to make a living, and feed the world.

Our solution is solar powered autonomous robots. There’s many reasons why we’ve taken this approach. The sun is energy, burning in the sky which is providing life to earth. It can also provide energy to the robotics and the electronic systems that we’re building. The robots are autonomous because manual labour is really expensive and hard to come by for farmers. Our system executes mechanical weeding, rather than spraying or spot spraying chemicals, because chemicals not only damage the soil, but they can impact our food, and by extension, the health of humans.

This vision is not just my own – I share it with Richard. We came together initially because of our complementary skill sets, which has proven to be super helpful. Finding the right teammates to support this vision was the next crucial piece.

The team members that we have recruited here come from some amazing backgrounds like Tesla, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Meta and Amazon

In 2020, Kenny Lee and Rich Wurden launched Aigen with a vision to revolutionise farming globally using a solar-powered, pesticide-free robotics system. In just three years, Aigen has been lauded by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in the agriculture category, and upon launching their first robotic platform, the Element, sold out in just one day. We recently had the chance to discuss Kenny’s insights on climate, agriculture, and the emerging trends in technological solutions, highlighting his journey from successful tech entrepreneur to a leading innovator in the regenerative agricultural revolution.

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“For a long time, in agriculture, we’ve been told that big iron is better. But the big equipment has reached a limit of scalability.”

Robotics. These are teammates that have worked on breakthrough cutting edge technologies, and want to take all those skills and then apply them to a mission that they really believe in.

We’re building something very unique in terms of what the market has seen. The approaches our competitors have taken, whether that be adopting lasers which are incredibly energy intensive, or dependent upon using tractors, can kill the soil as they compact and degrade it over time. I think this is the first time anywhere globally that a fleet of robots of our size will be deployed. We’re starting in rural America and we couldn’t be more excited.

Internally, we’ve been discussing the stacking of different disruptive technologies leveraged by Aigen, including energy storage, renewables, AI, and robotics to unlock a better future. How do you see this playing out within regenerative agriculture?

For a long time, in agriculture, we’ve been told that big iron is better. But the big equipment has reached a limit of scalability – not just in fuel efficiency, but in the compaction of the soil. The more you compact the soil, the more you’ll have to till in the next season. Farmers, especially the younger ones, have been seeing

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this and thinking, why can’t we build lighter, smaller equipment rather than these big, monster machines? And we’re riding the wave unlocked by the tiny silicon chips that came from the advent of the smartphone. These chips allow us to compact so much compute power into a small form factor, on the most efficient battery cells possible, which we’re able to leverage and inject it into our robots at Aigen. On top of that is the AI revolution, that’s already here.

This also falls alongside several macro-level trends across agriculture. The farming population is ageing, and the old way of doing things is going to be phased out in the next couple of decades. New entrants, a younger generation of farmers, will accelerate tech adoption. These farmers have recognized another trend, herbicide resistance, and are looking for answers. As a result, they’re significantly more adaptable and willing to learn new solutions. We also see an emerging consciousness about health. As a society, we’re working on understanding the impact of chemicals in farming on our body, and demanding alternatives.

Aigen starts with weed control, but your ambitions are vaster. Can you delve into the potential applications of your robotic fleet

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A CONVERSATION WITH KENNY LEE, CO-FOUNDER, AIGEN beyond weed management? How could Aigen’s data insights empower growers towards a more regenerative future?

Aigen’s platform is essentially super smart computers with eyes, sensors and measurement tools that can be leveraged to equip the farmers with information. Our future potential is built upon the bedrock of this robotic platform, that’s constantly out on the farm at all times, collecting data. We’ve started with weed control, because farmers are having to spray more and more harmful chemicals to address herbicide resistant weeds. But eventually, plant matter adapts to any chemicals that we spray on them if we’re overusing it. The more we spray, the more resistant these plants become, and the more chemicals end up in our food and soils. We need to break that loop.

But beyond this initial application, we have been exploring solutions around other chemical applications, like nitrogen usage and fertilisers.

We are over-applying fertilisers on all of our lands and these chemicals get into our rivers, creating huge issues like algae blooms. You see this in the Gulf of Mexico, where all of the chemical runs off out of the Mississippi River, damaging our ocean ecology. And that’s pretty common for farmers because precision application of nutrients, in specific fields, at the right time, is very difficult for them to do without necessary data for precise action.

Farmers also commonly over apply water, even if it’s not needed. As we enter periods of heavy drought, I think that is an increasingly important conversation that we need to have.

We can help by identifying nitrogen or potassium deficiency in crops, witnessing the leaves curling or colouring in a particular way, and equipping farmers with this real time data to vastly improve crop health while saving water.

The third application for Aigen is soil health. This past week, I was sitting with a father and son talking about how they watched their soil being blown off their farm. They know they have to do something different, but they have the burden of carrying all the risk that goes along with it. They’re trying to be

more sustainable by practising less tillage and chemical inputs, but they don’t know if their yields are going to be impacted as a result of that. Aigen can leverage on-field data collection to create case studies that retrospectively analyse the relationship between farm practices and outcomes such as soil health, carbon sequestration, and crop yields. This approach will provide concrete evidence and insights, serving as a guide for future farming activities and aiding other farmers in making informed decisions.

One carbon crediting team approached us saying that if we can prove that the farmers are using less chemicals, tillage, and reduce soil compaction, then Aigen can work with the carbon verifier to put some money back into the farmer’s pockets, through ecological benefit credits or carbon credits. We see this as another interesting future application for working with growers to explore.

We felt incredibly privileged to lead your $12M Series-A round this past fall and deepen our partnership with your team. What do you see as the critical next steps for Aigen to help scale your vision into reality? What are you personally most excited about?

What’s really exciting is the beachhead market that we’ve landed on. Looking at the immediate problem we’re solving today which is herbicide resistant weed control for conventional farmers – the demand is overwhelming. This has been a very encouraging sign, especially farmers’ willingness to adopt new technology. We’ve managed to build a lot of trust with our first customers. In North Dakota, they’ve adopted us as their own, showcasing us as one of the leading local businesses in Fargo.

And once we’re on the farms, there is so much more we can offer the farmers beyond weed control. Our robots have eyes, ears, sensors, arms – there are plenty of areas for us to leverage that which we don’t yet know or understand. Once we get our robots deployed at scale we’ll start seeing those use cases come out. These ideas will start flowing upwards from

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the farmers towards us, rather than the other way around. That’s a really exciting opportunity to start building the future of Aigen.

Farmers hold invaluable knowledge – how has Aigen integrated feedback and insights from growers into its development process?

Has this solidified the importance of your mission?

Farmers have always thought deeply about the land that they farm on, and they’ve always cared for the land in their own way. The farmers we speak with often refer to themselves as stewards of the land. I think a lot of farmers resonate with that, and ask themselves where we’ve gone wrong with the technologies that were deployed since the green revolution, whether that be large industrialised tractors or chemical usage on our land.

At that point in time, we did not have the foresight to see what negative externalities those types of technologies would have on the planet.

Solving their weed problems is just the beginning. A lot of the ancient wisdom of understanding our land and working within the ecosystem, knowledge from the Native Americans and their ancestors for example, has been ignored. We’re part of a movement towards understanding the land more, alongside other technologies like biologics, or satellite imagery for precision agriculture to more deeply understand the lands that we’re farming on, to regain the types of local knowledge we’ve lost. At Aigen, we aim to build trust and truly partner with farmers to help them understand, steward and serve their land.

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“We’re part of a movement towards understanding the land ... to regain the types of local knowledge we’ve lost.”

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The global food system alone causes 34 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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FOOD SYSTEMS Our vision for healthy, regenerative food systems is closely intertwined with the future of agricultural systems. Shifting diets and addressing food waste can significantly reduce the global demand for agriculture. Likewise, as regenerative technologies propel healthy farming systems to scale, farms will continue to switch to lower-intensity regenerative grazing, growing organic high-end crops and rehabilitating the soil. Some land might be rewilded or dedicated to specific naturebased carbon removal projects. A reorientation of farming can restore degraded landscapes and enhance the flavour, nutritional value, and functionality of our food.

The global food system alone causes 34 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Sources of emissions overlap heavily with agricultural emissions—deforestation, emissions from feed crops, and direct emissions—as well as processes taking place beyond the farm gate, including food loss and waste.

One aspect of how we eat, however, stands alone in the intensity of its impact: protein production. Systems of protein production cause roughly half of all food systems emissions. It exceeds the total emissions from all other sectors in the United States.

The main drivers of this vast climate impact are ruminant methane and manure, which produce 30 percent of global methane emissions – a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. According to the Good Food Institute, if there were no

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change in meat production methods, the growing demand for meat in all major economies would contribute the equivalent of an additional five to ten gigatonnes of annual carbon emissions to our atmosphere.

It’s a dangerous misconception to believe that meat consumption is an unchanging aspect of our diets.

Over the past fifty years, animal protein consumption has increased by roughly forty-four pounds per person, with the steepest gain in low- and middle-income countries.

Worldwide meat production has quadrupled to over 340 million tons per year to meet rising demand.

Undeniably, the climate impact of industrial animal agriculture will need to be mitigated by developing alternative protein sources to fulfil our dietary needs and consumer preferences. Equally important will

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be a shift in consumption patterns to plant-rich diets with reduced meat consumption. A plant-rich diet can be adopted incrementally at different levels, with small behavioural changes that lead to globally significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the puzzle isn’t so easily solved as ousting animal agriculture entirely. Consuming locally, regeneratively farmed meat is possible, and presently, plant-based diets rely on mono-cropped (often GMO) soy and pea production for protein or crops that fail to be grown regeneratively. Growers face the pressure to cater to the consumption of an ever-growing global population from a finite amount of arable land, topsoil, and nutrients. Many crops can be grown regeneratively, but not at the desired scale. Developing novel methods of supplementing plant and animal inputs to our diet will be critical to supplementing a transition to regenerative agriculture.

Our food systems face pressure from both the supply and demand sides of the value chain. Optimising agricultural systems and delivering regenerative sources of nutrients to our diets will be futile unless we

also ensure that food produced and distributed is consumed rather than lost or wasted.

Between the farm gate and consumers, 10% of food is lost to food contaminants (toxins, pathogens, yeasts, and moulds) every year. Put another way, $250B worth of calories are wasted, which ultimately contributes to ~3% of global GHG emissions from landfill methane. With climate change increasing the conditions that cause food contamination outbreaks and tightening government regulations, food supply chains need to adopt tools that reduce waste, improve safety, and preserve quality.

Another third of all food produced is wasted, leading to roughly eight per cent of global emissions. Producing uneaten food also squanders a whole host of resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertiliser, hours of labour, and financial capital— harming ecosystems and generating greenhouse gases at every stage.

Reducing food loss and waste can help close two-thirds of the gap between our resources available and the food we will need to feed the planet by 2050.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS TO ENABLE REGENERATIVE FOOD SYSTEMS: Regenerative food systems go hand in hand with regenerative agriculture – when moved together, these levers can release the pressure valve on farmers and our land. Growers are currently facing the impossible task of catering to the consumption of an ever-growing global population from a finite amount of arable land, topsoil and nutrients.

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT-RICH DIETS THROUGH NUTRITIOUS, ACCESSIBLE, AND GOOD-TASTING ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS AND FOODS.

It will be critical to support the scaling of technologies that enhance the quality of plant-based and cultivated meat and seafood. In order to scale the adoption of plant-rich diets, it will be equally important to minimise consumer behavioural change by creating widely accessible and affordable plant-based options.

REPLACE CARBON-INTENSIVE PROTEIN PRODUCTION METHODS WITH CARBONNEGATIVE PROCESSES AND FEEDSTOCKS.

To meet demand and depart from our overreliance on industrial animal agriculture and mono-cropped inputs, we require advanced technologies such as synthetic biology to unlock alternative, regenerative protein sources.

These approaches use orders of magnitude less water, land, pesticides, and chemical fertiliser while reducing distances required to move raw ingredients and end-products.

TRANSFORM FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS TO REDUCE WASTE, IMPROVE SAFETY, AND PRESERVE QUALITY.

Regenerative approaches that dramatically improve food and seeds’ shelflife, safety, and durability will be critical to reducing food loss and waste and ensuring our agricultural resources are used efficiently. At the same time, we need to continue to innovate in our utilisation of inevitable waste streams throughout the supply chain.

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A CONVERSATION WITH SHANNON NANGLE, CO-FOUNDER, CIRCE Starting with the big picture, how do you see your technology transforming the food system, particularly in relation to animal agriculture and the various impacts of traditional fat production?

There is an imbalance between what nature has to offer, and what we want to take. This leads to waste and inefficiencies. And while our green energy transition is well on its way, the transition to green manufacturing is not.

We live in a world of carbon. Typical inputs for legacy manufacturing are either fossil or agriculture derived. These are resource and carbon intensive processes. However, we can’t just stop making everything, we have to make the same things in a carbon neutral or negative way. We are trying to find a way to decouple manufacturing from the destruction of natural resources. At Circe, we think of transforming the food system in two ways: the first is from the platform perspective, and the second is from the product perspective – the fats.

The platform is a new approach to manufacturing all the things that make up our world; from plastics, to food, to chemicals, materials, and fuels. We’re making products from CO2, H2 and O2, and those outputs can be whatever we’re able to engineer our microbes to

make at commercial productivity.

From an oil perspective, we’re building the cheapest way to manufacture oils on the planet.

These costs are driven down by pursuing low cost feedstocks like H2 and CO2, to produce tailored triglycerides, which are the fats, butters, and oil found in plants and animals that provide taste, texture, and nutrition. They end up serving as drop-ins and functional ingredients for existing foods — dairy, meat, baked goods, and confectionery. And we do it in a carbon negative way, drawing down 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide for every kilogram of oil, directly into the fat. And because our process is a one-pot reaction, we can collapse the supply chain of these desirable materials to simply gases-in, product-out, without need for additional fractionation--as is typical in the production of animal and plant fats. We can stabilise and secure supply chains, which is becoming increasingly critical for the warming world.

Your approach leverages CO2 emissions and hydrogen to create valuable fats. Can you elaborate a bit on how Circe contributes to a circular economy and closed-loop food system?

As our primary inputs are CO2, H2, and

Shannon Nangle, PhD spun Circe Bioscience out of her post-doctoral research as a member of Pam Silver’s lab within the Wyss Institute at Harvard where she focused on engineering microbes, building electrochemistry rigs, and customising fermentation systems. Shannon is a former Activate Fellow, has her work featured in the MIT Museum and was named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 in 2022. Shannon is a visionary founder, who is a leader in applying biotechnology in a targeted way to produce otherwise impossible ingredients to make into foods. This approach spares agricultural and natural lands, seeks resource efficiency across carbon, water, and energy, and promises that food is just the beginning.

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“We can’t just stop making everything, we have to make the same things in a carbon neutral or negative way.”

O2, this means we can start with just water, electricity, and CO2 to run our platform. All of the carbon in the product comes from carbon dioxide, in a steady-state model that gas will eventually return to the atmosphere. We envision carbon dioxide utilisation will play a key role in the circular economy, where carbon dioxide is the central resource in manufacturing. It’s an ideal resource that can be utilised, released, and reutilized. While we’ve only spoken about gaseous feedstocks up until now, there are a variety of ways we’re able to deliver different feedstocks to our process, including sugars, waste products from plant and animal processing, biogas, and liquid natural gas. All of this makes Circe’s process an important innovation in the circular economy.

Looking ahead, what does the future hold for Circe Bioscience? Can you share your vision for the impact your technology will have on the environment, food security, and consumer choices?

I want us to build as many profitable plants as possible. I want our technology to be the godo solution for CO2 and H2 utilisation. I want to effectively bridge regenerative agriculture with biotechnology. Food security is national security,

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we are a way to supplement the food system in modular ways to suit the shifting demands of the food system.

Synthetic biology holds immense potential in addressing various global challenges. Outside of food systems, where do you see this field playing out in the future, and how do you envision your work at Circe serving as a model for other applications of synthetic biology?

SynBio will unlock more shots at goal, high throughput systems that can be brought in-house.

Because hitting commercial productivity is even more critical now than it was before, to reach competitive economics, we’re going after highimpact commodity molecules for go-to-market.

Circe is enabling a green manufacturing platform, not limited only to food products. It’s a way to make a wide variety of products. In the short term, it’s best suited to lipids because fats have less tech risk. But when you can use synthetic biology, and your process basically only needs water, carbon dioxide and electricity—the question is ‘what can’t you make?’

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An urgent material revolution is possible.

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MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS Human synthesis of plastic materials from hydrocarbons has left an indelible footprint on our society and planet. Plastics have unquestionably been allowed to permeate every aspect of our surroundings, from fabrics to food, water, building materials and children’s toys. They are found in the most remote parts of our natural environment – sea ice in the Arctic, deep-sea organisms living on the ocean floor, and even in human blood. But the large-scale production and use of plastic materials only dates back to 1950. Our synthetic world is an unknown frontier. Just three generations have passed since plastics became ubiquitous, yet our bodies contain traces of the synthetic polymers that form the basis of our daily lives – the impacts of which are largely unknown.

Humans have created and lived off natural polymeric materials such as hemp, wood, amber, wool, silk, and rubber for millennia. The resourcecarrying capacity of nature bound our consumption, and consumption stood in balance with the planet’s capacity to regenerate. The discovery of the first fully synthetic plastic in the early twentieth century represents a clear turning point where, for the first time, human manufacturing was not constrained by the limits of nature. Since then, it’s estimated that 830 billion metric tons of virgin plastics have been produced and persist in our land, ocean, and bodies.

An urgent material revolution is possible, and macro tailwinds are already shifting towards a return to regenerative production,

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consumption, and decarbonisation of materials. As a result of regulation and consumer pressure, brands have rapidly sought alternatives to plastic materials and single-use products. Nestlé has committed up to $2 billion to develop food-grade recycled plastics and sustainable plastic technologies, including 100% bioPET. Carmaker Peugeot Citroën has pledged to make 20% of its plastics renewables-based. Toyota has committed to buying 25% of the bioPE output from Braskem’s Brazilian plant, which comes at a 30–50% price markup compared with fossil-based PE, thus showing Toyota’s willingness to pay premiums for sustainable polymers.

Plastics have led us to deviate from natural production cycles at an immense cost. Materials

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produced in natural production cycles move through three phases. In primary production, photosynthetic organisms use free renewable energy flows and material building blocks (soil, air, water) to create energy-dense structures.

Consumption, in which life down the energy chain breaks down the energy-dense structures to consume energy for the construction of their tissues, and decomposition, in which bacteria and fungi break down material back into the basic building blocks, using energy and creating the ingredients for use by primary producers.

In contrast to natural production cycles, which rely on renewable materials, synthetic materials such as plastics draw on a finite stock of energy and building blocks. The link

between decomposition and primary production is broken, meaning that nutrients in a natural system would become “food” for primary production instead of pollution. The result is that at both the beginning and end of their life cycle, plastics exceed the carrying capacity of the biosphere: A: THE PRIMARY PRODUCTION OF PLASTIC POLYMERS IS DERIVED FROM PETROCHEMICALS. The processing of petrochemicals uses a finite resource for energy (e.g., oil, petroleum) and releases greenhouse gas emissions. The backbone of a plastic polymer is carbon extracted from crude oil. While the immediate carbon impact of plastic production pales compared to energy production, as renewables scale, plastics are

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Humans have created and lived off natural polymeric materials for millennia.

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frequently projected to be the most significant source of revived demand for oil over coming decades.

hormones, reduce fertility, damage the nervous system, and cause cancer.

B: THE CONSUMPTION OF PLASTIC GOODS AND MATERIALS IS OFTEN SINGLE-USE, AND THE USE VALUE OF THE PRODUCTS IS ASYMMETRIC TO THE NEGATIVE EXTERNALITY OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH. Consumption includes both singleuse and recycling of plastics and synthetic polymers, as recycling delays, rather than avoids, final disposal. The impact of plastics on life and the planet stretches far beyond the fossil inputs that form the basis of synthetic polymers and the eventual persistence of plastic waste in the environment.

Even for long-lasting, durable products, chemicals of concern can be released from plastic along its entire life cycle, including a long list of substances that are persistent and mobile in the environment, accumulate in the body, and can mimic, block or alter the actions of

C: DECOMPOSITION IS ALMOST ENTIRELY ABSENT IN THE SYSTEM. Eventually, all virgin and recycled plastics accumulate in soil, air, and water as pollution. The plastic problem is fundamentally underpinned by the massive amount of plastic waste in our environment. In just over half a century,x approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste has been generated – around one-tenth of which has been recycled, and nearly eighty per cent has instead accumulated in landfills or the natural environment.

An estimated 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste are currently in our oceans, with a further 33 billion pounds of plastic entering the marine environment every year.

Even ‘biodegradable’ plastics in the aquatic environment will decompose quite differently than in a terrestrial setting (soil, landfill, composter), as the conditions required for rapid biodegradation are unlikely to occur.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS TO ENABLE REGENERATIVE MATERIAL SYSTEMS: Our departure from natural production cycles is a deviation rather than the norm – and a regenerative materials system is undeniably possible by shifting our paradigm back towards mimicking nature’s base cycle.

SUBSTITUTE PETROCHEMICAL MATERIALS WITH BIOBASED MATERIALS:

The very base premise of a regenerative materials system is mimicking the biological building blocks of natural materials. Rather than relying on synthetics, biopolymers are found in nature, abundant, versatile, and compatible with life and natural systems. As we phase into renewable energy, the petrochemical industry is likely to be one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels. Pioneering solutions such as carbon engineering and hydrogen integration will assume critical significance in steering industries toward regenerative trajectories.

TRANSITION TO A CIRCULAR ECONOMY:

Durable products, recycling and reuse infrastructure, and valorising waste products are critical to increasing the price and value of resources at the end of life for new use, drastically reducing waste and industrial production.

DETOXIFYING MATERIALS ACROSS THE SUPPLY CHAIN:

Dyes, pigments, solvents, surfactants, plasticisers, and pesticides are some of the many chemical inputs used in plastics and materials manufacturing.

A regenerative materials system will avoid using building blocks that are persistent in ecosystems or toxic to humans and other species.

SCALING BIOSYNTHETIC ALTERNATIVES THAT USE RENEWABLE FEEDSTOCKS AND WASTE AS AN INPUT:

Biomanufacturing polymers and other material building blocks is a promising approach to creating tunable, petrochemical-free materials.

The choice of feedstock is critical as it can alter the characteristics of the polymer and the environmental effect. The synthetic bio revolution makes polymers of this class on the precipice of deployment to displace those produced from fossil fuel carbon feedstocks. These approaches can use existing waste materials from agriculture, food systems, emissions (such as pure streams of CO2), and renewable sources such as flax, algae, and fungi to create novel outputs. They avoid agricultural inputs which compete with food sources – while abundant at the commodity scale, biopolymer inputs like sucrose and fructose are often derived from corn, wheat, potato, and vegetable oils disrupt food supply and have led to food shortages.

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INNOVATE NATURAL AND RESTORATIVE MATERIALS TO MATCH THE PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SYNTHETICS:

Humans have used natural fibres such as cotton, hemp, wool, and flax for millennia. Improving the breeding, growth, and processing of these fibres through regenerative agriculture and the industrial process can improve biodiversity, restore soil health, and sequester carbon. Decades of innovation and invested research in petroleum-based materials have created a cost advantage over natural building blocks and fibres. In contrast, natural fibre processing has remained unchanged for decades. Clear inflexion points where the price has dropped dramatically (most famously, inventing the cotton gin) indicate technology has the potential to create costcompetitiveness.

RADICALLY IMPROVING RECYCLING PARADIGMS TO UTILISE EXISTING MATERIALS INDEFINITELY:

Traditional recycling is only effective with relatively pure feedstocks and faces structural limitations, such as resulting in poor material properties that limit end-market applications. Novel approaches in chemical and biological recycling substrates can theoretically enable infinite material recycling by valorising every input in our waste to return high-quality polymers.

ADDRESS LEGACY PLASTIC POLLUTION WITH NOVEL SOLUTIONS FOR BIOREMEDIATION:

Remediation efforts for wastewater to remove microplastics are emerging and yet to be commercialised. Microbes, algae, enzymes and fungi have natural physical absorption that could be harnessed for bioremediation and wastewater treatment.

SHIFT TO BIODEGRADABLES WHICH ARE FULLY COMPOSTABLE BOTH MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENTS WITHOUT ADDITIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE:

An estimated 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste is currently in our oceans, with a further 33 billion pounds of plastic entering the marine environment every single year. Even ‘biodegradable’ plastics in the marine environment will decompose quite differently than in a terrestrial setting (soil, landfill, composter), as the conditions required for rapid biodegradation are unlikely to occur. Innovation in biodegradables that make degradation both efficient and viable across environments is critical to mimicking natural production cycles.

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A CONVERSATION WITH YUDI DING, CO-FOUNDER, PACT What advice would you give to your younger self, or to other aspiring scientists on the path to becoming founders bringing their life’s work to market?

At the beginning of my entrepreneurship journey, I wanted to determine where I could make the most impact for the planet. The whole fashion industry contributes 7-10% of global carbon emissions, overwhelmingly from materials and production, but it’s also evident that it has a present demand for innovative and responsible materials.

When we dove deeper, we found that industrial leather production has the highest impact on the planet by far. The question then became, how do we create a material that captures all of the characteristics that we love about leather, but at the same time reduce the environmental impact when we make it? That was the beginning of PACT. Being trained as a scientist, a chemist and a chemical engineer, I personally felt that I was uniquely positioned to contribute my knowledge and experience to this problem by transforming collagen protein into a material. When I was still in university, I had initially started to look into stem-cell technology, researching how to culture skin cells and then tan it. Making a small piece of

material is not very difficult – the cost is low and the time of producing the material is quick. Yet the biggest challenge right now is how to maintain the consistency and quality of these materials at scale. There are a lot of great innovative textiles that exist today, unable to scale or incorporate into infrastructure and supply chains. This is one of PACT’s strengths, and if I were to give any advice to myself four years ago, I would say, focus your energy on researching and developing a process that is appropriate to scale up via manufacturing when you want to enter the market.

During the time I spent studying my original idea, I realised it simply wasn’t scalable – and that scalability is the biggest challenge in the industry. I began to focus on how we could responsibly source collagen at scale. Collagen made perfect sense – it’s the main building block in real leather.

As a scientist by trade, how has innovating in a design-centric industry affected your evolution as a founder?

The reality is, oftentimes a designer doesn’t primarily think of sustainability when they’re assessing a material – they’re looking for materials that can fulfil their creative brief.

So to truly succeed in this space, the material

The ReGen team sat down to have a conversation with Dr. Yudi Ding, cofounder of PACT, and an expert in applying chemical engineering at the cutting edge of materials science. Yudi holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge in Organic Chemistry and a Chemical Engineering degree from École Polytechnique, Paris, and has spent his career studying scaleable alternatives to one of the highest impact materials in the fashion industry – leather.

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“We believe that our material, at scale, will be one of the key players in this space.”

must outperform existing materials. Inevitably, I’ve begun to pay more attention to the sensory details of a product, and how brands communicate their products to their customers.

Over the past four years I have become more aware of the high level of quality in the materials brands use. I’ve had to educate myself on how supply partners operate, and understand what is most important to each player. I’ve learned the significance of touching material and manipulating it – bending, folding, stretching it, to really understand how material functions. Whenever we bring a new material to a brand the first thing they do is hold it in their hands to assess it close up on feel and aesthetic. The softness and the drape of the material is key – it’s something you’re immediately aware of when you purchase a luxury bag. These are also the qualities which can be very difficult to replicate.

In this industry you learn a lot by ‘doing’. We are required to carry out a number of specific tests on the material to ensure they are fit for purpose. It’s also important for us to test the final product. Every day, I am carrying around one of our leather bags to understand how the product ages and performs – which is quite fun for me.

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The collagen you mention is upcycled from the fishing industry, minimising waste from one industry and maximising resource usage for another. Could you tell us about PACT’s framework of recycling molecules, instead of harvesting or extracting new resources in the production of your materials?

There is an enormous amount of waste that we can leverage to process into protein, and our technology is agnostic to the source of collagen. When we started to look at different types of collagen, we found marine collagen has the lowest planetary impact, and collagen manufacturers, as well as fish processors, confirmed to us there is currently a huge surplus of fish waste in the industry.

Luxury brands and their tannery partners have also drawn our attention to the enormity of waste occurring across the leather supply chain. At the tannery for example, there are a lot of offcuts from the skin provided by the meat industry. Some tanneries are already working with collagen manufacturers to upcycle their waste to turn it into usable proteins, and now we are able to provide them with the additional opportunity to transform all their raw material into a finished product.

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A CONVERSATION WITH YUDI DING, CO-FOUNDER, PACT

Given your partnerships with both brands and tanneries, and the momentum you’ve witnessed towards innovation on both ends, what direction do you think the fashion industry as a whole is moving towards? What has surprised you the most about working across the fashion supply chain?

Engaging with the middle of the supply chain has definitely become a key differentiator for us. A lot of innovation is already happening in the space – and we’ve learned that the mills and tanneries work alongside the rhythm of the fashion cycle. There are runway shows, production and lead times, delivery of samples and design manufacturing. From raw material manufacturing design to final product delivery, it’s a very coordinated industry. As an innovator we need to fully understand the industry by interrogating every step along the supply chain and determine the needs of each player to easily adopt your technology. These stakeholders also hold a wealth of knowledge on scaling up new materials that they’ve imparted upon us.

Customisation is extremely important in fashion. A big learning has been to keep our material as versatile as possible. It should stay general in the early stages of partnering with a mill or tannery, and we leave customisation to the final step. The feel of the material, the shine, the embossing – any minor feature you change will result in a unique product and it’s important for PACT to avoid handling an unnecessarily huge SKU. At scale, when we manufacture hundreds of metres of material on large rolls, having to change the custom requirements constantly is not feasible.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in pushing forward a fast-moving, consumptive industry to be more circular, less wasteful, and regenerative – and how do you

think these can be overcome?

I think the biggest industry wide challenge is moving from short term products to secure, long-term commitments from brands. We want to avoid the mistakes of those before us, focusing deeply on the development of the product first to ensure the performance is tested and proven, the aesthetics are ready. Only then can we begin shouting to the world that we have a superior material.

Fashion, and luxury in particular, is always going to be seasonal. There may be a small amount of products that a brand would carryover into the next season, but the majority will be new each season – which often means an entirely new material. We want to find partners that have visions for longer term products or that require a large supply of our material.

We believe that our material, at scale, will be one of the key players in this space as we can offer a variety of different end-uses to overcome these challenges. This is how Oval, our first material, goes from product to a platform technology – It can be used by tanneries and manufacturers in other industries, not just fashion.

Ultimately, it can outperform and provide an exciting alternative to traditional materials with a high carbon impact.

Throughout your founding journey so far have there been any pivotal moments when you’ve been offered support that has been truly helpful?

The support we’ve been given from investors, especially Dan and ReGen on a personal level has been really helpful. What ReGen is doing feels so different from other investors – the founders retreat, focusing on the wellbeing of founders and providing an intimate secure circle for everyone to bond and just talk is awesome.

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There is an enormous amount of waste that we can leverage.

DR. YUDI DING CO-FOUNDER — PACT

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NATURE All the oxygen we breathe, all the food we eat, and all the water we drink travels through permutations of biological life before reaching our lips. Life on Earth has evolved for 4.5 billion years – an incomprehensible chunk of geologic time – to multiply, diversify, and occupy every nook and cranny of our planet.

ROUGHLY 75 PERCENT OF TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS AND 66 PERCENT OF MARINE ECOSYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DEEMED SEVERELY ALTERED.

The human impact on this immense biodiversity has been profound and devastating. It’s amplified by the tendency of extinction to breed extinction.

Interactions of species on the brink of eradication tend to move other species towards extinction, creating a domino effect towards mass extinction and overall ecosystem decay.

Land use change is the principal historical cause of ecosystem loss. Roughly 75 percent of terrestrial ecosystems and 66 percent of marine ecosystems have been deemed severely altered. Today, cropping or animal husbandry requires one-third of Earth’s land surface; three agricultural sectors – beef, oilseeds, and forestry products – account for three-quarters of global deforestation and present threats to the waterways and species that reside there. Even wild organisms are severely impacted.

Ninety per cent of the world’s wild fish stocks are exploited or overfished, and toxic ‘forever’ chemicals have been recorded in more than 330 wildlife species.

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Biodiversity is so much more than a resource at our disposal. It’s the universal basis for wellbeing.

Even then, climate change will emerge over the course of the century as the final nail in the coffin of the biodiversity crisis. As we raise the temperature and acidity of the oceans, we destroy the reef structures responsible for sustaining life and melt Arctic ice shelves that are beholden to supporting some of the rarest species on Earth. As we raise the temperature on the planet, we drive animals up the mountain until they summit and north till they run out of north. The broad perception that addressing climate change is existential, but nature is ‘for the sake of it’ is both dangerous and myopic – the two issues exist handin-hand. Simply put, we must address the biodiversity crisis to address climate change. The biological carbon sink comprises grasslands, forests, soil, microorganisms, and oceans that mediate a substantial portion of our emissions. As we rapidly develop and destroy natural habitats to make room for urban development and agriculture, we release a cascading effect on our climate system.

The economic result of accelerated extinctions and ecosystem destruction will be staggering. More than half of

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the world’s gross domestic product depends on nature and its services.

With the human population passing 8 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing and mining are altering the natural world at an unprecedented rate. Nature’s amenities – such as raw materials and ecosystem services we depend on to survive and thrive – are worth an estimated 125 trillion dollars annually, more than 70 times the market cap of Amazon. Moreover, approximately 1.2 billion jobs in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and tourism depend on effectively managing healthy ecosystems.

Biodiversity is so much more than a resource at our disposal. It’s the universal basis for wellbeing. We fail to observe the building blocks of the life cycle through a web of biodiversity to link all living beings on Earth. As our forests are destroyed, as our farms continue to pump out industrially produced and nutritionally empty commodities, and as our diets become degraded through contamination by synthetic chemicals, we have become connected through disease and toxicity.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS TO ENABLE REGENERATIVE LIVING SYSTEMS: So what will it take for us to understand that nature’s web of life is worth saving? The challenge ahead of us is profound, but life’s complexity – biodiversity – is exceptional, enigmatic, exhilarating, awe-inspiring, elegant, and infinitely beautiful. The solutions and systems for preserving nature can be found within it, and like natural systems, are overlapping and complementary to shifts needed for regenerative agriculture, food systems, climate systems, and materials and commodity goods: TRANSFORMED ECONOMIC INCENTIVES VALUING LIVING CAPITAL:

Reorienting economic incentives to value living capital involves recognising the intrinsic value of natural ecosystems and biodiversity in economic systems. By integrating the intrinsic worth of living capital, such as forests, wetlands, and biodiversity-rich areas, into economic systems, we incentivise the preservation and regeneration of these ecosystems. Regenerative finance models prioritise long-term ecological health, encouraging financial systems to support initiatives that accurately represent the link between economic prosperity, ecological health, and human wellbeing. This transformative shift in financial systems promotes a symbiotic relationship between economic prosperity and protecting vital ecosystems, fostering a path towards a more resilient and sustainable future for humanity and the planet.

RAPID DEPLOYMENT OF NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS:

Swiftly implementing nature-based solutions involves utilising natural processes and ecosystems to address climate and biodiversity challenges.

These solutions leverage the power of nature to mitigate climate change impacts, enhance resilience, and foster regeneration. By using the planet’s natural processes to remove carbon, improve soil health, and deacidify the oceans, we can achieve climate goals while restoring biodiversity and ecosystems.

UTILISATION OF SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY IN ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION:

Synthetic biology harnesses the power of genetic engineering and biological systems to design and create new biological entities or redesign existing ones. Engineered microorganisms could aid in restoring degraded environments by facilitating soil remediation, promoting nutrient cycling, or creating alternatives to agricultural products. This application of synthetic biology offers innovative solutions for rehabilitating ecosystems, reintroducing lost or endangered species, and facilitating the regeneration of habitats that support a diverse array of life forms.

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SCALING ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR CONSERVATION:

Remote sensing, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and other advancements in regenerative technologies can be leveraged to enhance conservation efforts on a larger scale. This scaling of technologies contributes to systems change by improving monitoring, evaluation, and management of ecosystems and species. By providing comprehensive data and insights, these enabling conditions enable more informed decisionmaking, facilitating targeted conservation actions and optimising resource allocation for maximum impact in protecting and restoring biodiversity.

SHIFTING TO REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES:

Transitioning to regenerative agricultural practices reduces reliance on destructive methods, contributing to agricultural expansion into wildlands.

Increasing productivity enables the provision of food for a growing global population without encroaching upon natural habitats. This transformation promotes the regeneration of degraded lands, supporting biodiversity by creating healthy ecosystems within agricultural landscapes.

DETOXIFYING INDUSTRY AND ADDRESSING LEGACY WASTE STREAMS:

Addressing legacy waste streams and detoxifying industry involves remediation efforts to clean up past environmental damages and prevent further pollution. This shift contributes to systems change by preventing ongoing pollution, restoring contaminated sites, and safeguarding biodiversity from the detrimental effects of hazardous waste.

UPHOLDING AND REPLICATING INDIGENOUS STEWARDSHIP PRACTICES:

Learning from and respecting traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable management practices. This initiative supports systems change by promoting holistic and harmonious relationships between communities and their surrounding ecosystems by integrating these indigenous approaches into contemporary conservation strategies. These practices prioritise biodiversity conservation, land regeneration, and the preservation of traditional ecological wisdom.

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A CONVERSATION WITH ANUKOOL LAKHINA, CO-FOUNDER, BURNBOT Anukool we’d love for you to share the story of how you came to found Burnbot, after meeting Lee and Simon.

I first got interested in wildfires around the 2018 CampFire in Paradise, one of the most destructive wildfires at that point. In addition to its destruction, I was surprised by the impact of the smoke, which reached the Bay Area where I lived.

This prompted me to learn about this problem, especially after experiencing similar events during the Australian fires and returning to devastating wildfires in the Bay Area. My wife, Shefali, who has a background in disaster risk reduction, and I, decided to start a nonprofit focused on catalysing social, ecological and technological innovations with communities on the frontlines of climate impacts. This led me to learn about wildfires and that is when I first learnt about fire as a means of managing vegetation and hazardous fuel. Along the way, I was introduced to Lee, my co-founder at BurnBot, who brought invaluable experience in innovation across a wide range of domains.

We originally were exploring novel methods of suppressing fires using sound, and then it was Lee’s insight to look at wildfire prevention instead.

Together, we pivoted our exploration towards prevention, recognizing the need to scale up ‘good fire’ to clear dangerous fuel loads.

There was a clear need for a technological solution to scale these operations to meaningfully prevent wildfires. Lee’s insight was to address this challenge by scaling up ‘good fire’, ‘beneficial fire’ or ‘regenerative fire’ to clear dangerous fuel loads. If you can scale the way that you ecologically treat this dead vegetation, you can reduce the risk of these fires becoming destructive. Both Lee and I wanted to see how prescribed fire operations actually happened. But when we went to watch, we realised it was supermanual, human-centric work. That’s just not a recipe to scale.

Early on we also met Simon Weibel, a former El Dorado hotshot wildland firefighter. Together, the three of us developed the technology and the business. With Simon’s understanding of the market and industry as a fire professional, we pivoted to not only build the machines but also to operate them as a service. This means we can promise an outcome, take away apprehension when working with a customer base that is usually averse to new tech, and actually deliver on our mission.

It has been an amazing and rewarding journey since then. I can tell you that waking up in the morning is not a problem! Everybody’s energised and we have a talented, mission

The ReGen team was privileged to share space with Anukool Lakhina to discuss his perspective as a leader in leveraging social, technical, and ecological innovations to help communities on the front line of climate impacts. Anukool is the co-founder of Burnbot, a part-time partner at Convective Capital, an early-stage investor in entrepreneurs building solutions to the wildfire crisis, and co-founder of Wonder Labs with his wife Shefali, who wrote her PhD on the impacts of wildfire on communities in Australia during the 2019 season of devastating bushfires. Anukool holds a PhD in Computer Science from Boston University.

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“We absolutely need it to solve this problem, and we have the collective capacity to do so.”

focused team. The challenge that we have to watch out for is not to let anxiety get the best of us because this problem is so large. We’ll continue to fail in our mission for the next 10 years. But hopefully along the way we’ll make an impact in the places that we operate while also building a meaningful, generational business.

What advice do you give to other founders approaching seemingly insurmountable, complex problems?

You have to bring the right technology to solve the right problem. Our evolution has been not to take a company that is trying to scale prescribed fire, but rather grow the company that’s trying to scale fuel treatment.

It was clear that fire is ecologically the best way to treat vegetation – the practice goes back to the indigenous people, both in Australia as well as in the US. We went to watch prescribed burns and quickly had the realisation that labour and time are massive obstacles to scaling fire mitigation. This laid the foundation for the BurnBot – It’s a controlled burning machine that scales the application of prescribed fire as an ecological way to treat hazardous fuel all season long, without any smoke or risk of escape. The amplification is very clear – with the BurnBot

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because you can automate the control lines, which is the most labour intensive task.

Working with former hotshots and forestry professionals also taught us that prescribed fire isn’t this silver bullet that some suggest it is.

Not all our landscapes today are ready for fire.

There’s a lot of dead fuel accumulation that needs to be cleared first. We decided to add a whole division in our business that does the mechanical treatment needed to prepare landscapes for prescribed fire. What we’re routinely finding is that our machines have 50 fold or 100 fold existing capacity. With three guys and two mastication machines, we can accomplish in five days what it would have taken forty people forty days to complete.

There’s already an immense amount of land in the mainland US that requires treatment, but over the past year, devastating fires have occurred in Hawaii, Europe, Australia, and now South America – how do you think about scaling up globally and how can BurnBot address the magnitude of the problem?

There’s no shortage of opportunity. Still, deciding where to expand will always be incredibly hard. Take the destructive wildfires of Lahaina – I would never have imagined that.

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A CONVERSATION WITH ANUKOOL LAKHINA, CO-FOUNDER, BURNBOT Or the Marshall fire in Colorado. Every season there are places burning we never would have imagined. I’ll always have personal anxieties around if we are doing enough.

Wildfires don’t stop at a zip code or a county.

They don’t understand national boundaries and every year, the problem is getting worse. We’re seeing parts of Europe burned that haven’t burned before. In the United States alone, there’s more than 200 million acres at risk, and our capacity to treat is around three million acres today and that’s not including Canada, South America, Europe, Australia. There is no shortage of opportunity, but it’s about being strategic and understanding that our ability to amplify wildfire prevention won’t be best served by stretching too thin.

When I read about these fires I have the overwhelming feeling that BurnBot has the means, the technology, and now even the finances to address them. But it’s not only about resources on our end, it’s also about bandwidth — fuel treatment is very place-based. That’s why when we think about growing our business, the use of proceeds will be to build more control burning machines, and to build more hubs – more localised bases where we can support atrisk communities.

We have three bases already here in California, and we’re planning to set up two more this year. We’re also setting up a base in Nevada, and will likely set up a base in Colorado and/ or Idaho. Globally, starting in Australia, we’re building a local hub on the ground and bringing decision making down to the local community.

Each of these addressable markets has a leader for the base who’s grounded and can also build the market. In some ways, they operate like their own startup, and we’re able to supply that base with resources and machines. By doing so we envision an organisation principle where autonomous hubs can serve their local market with the best practices and best tools we develop over time.

There is a whole workforce aspect as well.

The wildland firefighter workforce has been asked to go against nature’s fury and oftentimes

not equipped appropriately. Improving the attractiveness of roles like fuel treatment, upskilling people from local communities to have safe and more tech-forward roles, and providing year-round employment are ways to address this. It’s a way to provide meaningful employment opportunities that also supports local communities — something we tend to take for granted in tech. Our hubs can contribute to developing local economies in rural communities that fail to usually attract investment. If you look back in three years, my hope is that BurnBot will have made meaningful change across this front.

Your dedication to developing an ecosystem for fire-tech and expanding your impact is clear through the considerable effort you’ve put into nurturing an ecosystem for fire-tech through investing at Convective and founding BurnBot. How do you envision collaboration unfolding within the market? And how does this contrast with the conventional competitive dynamic in the startup world?

The idea for creating Convective arose because when we looked at the fire-tech landscape, there was really no specialist fund to support innovative entrepreneurs tackling the wildfire crisis. FireTech as a category just did not exist. The venture model is good at catalysing innovation, and I’m a big believer that when you’re aligned with big problems and inject capital into mission focused people, there’s never a reason to doubt these entrepreneurs. They can, and they literally will, go through fires to solve a problem.

This ecosystem is also not one where we pull each other down. The scale of the problem is huge and solutions are very complimentary. If BurnBot does its job right, then early detection and suppression becomes easier. There are companies that focus on home hardening, companies that focus on GIS software to understand fuel loads, and companies that focus on recovery. There’s insurance tech and FinTech, and mechanisms to reforest and regenerate.

It’s been exciting to see that in just two short years, there are almost 200 companies that call

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themselves FireTech companies. What I’m finding especially in California is both a community of entrepreneurs and a community of believers who more often than not are partnering and supporting each other. I think it’s the recognition that we do need new ideas because the status quo will not work anymore. It’s really quite meaningful.

Having founded several successful companies, what advice do you normally give to other founders? And as an investor, how do you think that you could best support and guide the founders that you work with?

As an investor I have experience on the ground as a founder, so I have empathy for the journey of being an entrepreneur. One way I support founders is by convening other FireTech entrepreneurs. Convective also hosts the Red Sky Summit, an event that brought together 200 people from around the world spanning policy, tech, and philanthropists to discuss FireTech and catalyse action to prevent destructive wildfires.

The advice I give now as an investor is that this is a really exciting space with a lot of potential impact across different areas. There’s a genuine feeling of purpose in this work, and I’ve personally had people come up to me and say that our technology is a “godsend” that will save lives. In my 20 years of experience in enterprise software, I’ve never heard similar reviews for our products and services.

That’s my pitch to anyone considering this space: come on in! There are problems, there’s innovation needed, and there are already innovative companies that are starting to scale..

Find ways to support existing solutions or explore new avenues. The sector is growing, and now it’s about putting resources behind what’s working.

“In just two short years, there are almost 200 companies that call themselves FireTech companies.”

When you think about pivotal moments of support that you’ve received over the years, what comes to mind as something you truly needed at that point in time?

We’ve had so many moments where it just took one or two people to believe in the mission to actually get us there.

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A CONVERSATION WITH ANUKOOL LAKHINA, CO-FOUNDER, BURNBOT

One that comes to mind most recently, and I’m not just saying this because I’m speaking to you, was ReGen leading our Series A in a challenging fundraising environment in 2023. It was really meaningful to have Dan’s conviction and understanding for the business and our mission and that ended up catalysing a really impressive round – that was larger than we originally sought.

Early on we had a similar moment with Cal Fire. We did a prescribed burn in August, historically a high-risk time, and the burn boss responsible for the project said they couldn’t have done it without us. This opens up new windows for controlled burns, which is significant because while August is high-risk, interestingly enough it’s also when certain plant species need it most – it’s what they’ve evolved for.

It all comes down to having someone believe in the mission and the potential. Why wouldn’t we want to prevent destructive wildfires? Scaling our fuel treatment capacity and enabling our workforce to do so safely and ecologically makes perfect sense.

What’s most exciting to you about this future, both generally in regenerative technologies, but also about the interactions technology can have with nature?

I believe the future can go two ways. History is not kind on the front of technology and nature – often we inadvertently end up creating other problems. So it comes down to how we apply technology. If we do so with intention, mindfulness,

and consideration for the overall impact, I do believe technology can be a force for good.

I’m an optimist and still hopeful. We absolutely need it to solve this problem, and we have the collective capacity to do so. We have the opportunity to be incredibly mindful of the broader consequences of everything we create, and we want to make sure that what we’re doing is truly regenerative. In our case, we don’t want to just incinerate the land – in fact, Lee has been thinking about the ecological aspect of our treatments and understanding how we ensure native plants grow back, not invasive species, and that the soil composition remains healthy. We are seeing some first promising signs already, and we want to do more research to study the ecological aspects of how we do treatment.

Everything is parameterizable with technology, and natural fire is additive to ecosystems. If we can make prescribed burns synthesise the effects of natural fire, the value proposition is not only that it contributes to the ecosystem, but that it’s more effective over time.

This is beneficial both for the habitat and for the long-term success of our company.

Destructive wildfires are a crisis, but we don’t have to feel helpless. We have agency; we can actually do something about it.Wildfires also account for a growing amount of emissions, and so have a significant impact on the overall climate challenge. Our tech has the potential to save lives, property, habitats, and communities, and also buy ourselves time to transition away from fossil fuels.

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It all comes down to having someone believe in the mission and the potential.

ANUKOOL LAKHINA (CO-FOUNDER) — BURNBOT

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CARBON AND CLIMATE Greenhouse gas emissions and their astounding impact on our climate underline the urgency of change across all systems. 1.5 trillion tonnes – that’s how much carbon dioxide we’ve emitted as a species into the atmosphere. Our world, as we know it today, rose from burning an enormous amount of fossil fuels to fuel the Industrial Revolution. The IPCC AR6 report opens with a simple assertion: “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.” The science lacks ambiguity, but our trajectory from this point onward is fundamentally uncertain. In the nineteenth century, pre-industrial carbon levels sat at around 260 parts per million in the atmosphere.

Two hundred years later, looking at more than 411 parts per million, we face the immensity of what we’ve sacrificed in the name of our extractive and consumptive lifestyles.

“THE BALANCE OF NATURE IS NOT A STATUS QUO; IT IS FLUID, EVER SHIFTING, IN A CONSTANT STATE OF ADJUSTMENT. MAN, TOO, IS PART OF THIS BALANCE.” – RACHEL CARSON, SILENT SPRING

The crisis we face, rooted in our addiction to fossil fuels that have fueled the modern world, cannot be overstated. We’ve careened past the point of ambiguity—the evidence of our collective impact on Earth’s climate is indisputable. To salvage any semblance of stability, we must confront the daunting task of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius—a goal that demands nothing short of a seismic transformation in our carbon emissions.

Decarbonisation, the urgent pivot from fossil fuels to renewable energy, remains the linchpin of this effort, but it’s far from enough.

The challenge extends beyond merely stopping further emissions.

We must actively extract legacy carbon from the atmosphere to confront the colossal weight of our carbon legacy. The IPCC’s call for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is emphatic—6 gigatonnes of CO2 per year by 2050 are required to chart a path toward environmental salvation. This monumental task becomes even more critical when considering the intractable “hardto-avoid” emissions, projected to hover between 1.5 to 3.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually—about 3.5% to 7.3% of 2019 global CO2 emission levels.

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Decarbonisation, carbon removal, and climate adaptation are no longer abstract concepts in our pursuit of a regenerative future— they’re pathways to prosperity.

Yet, amid this existential challenge lies an opportunity—one where regenerative technologies take centre stage. From harnessing nature’s resilience for carbon sequestration, incentivising large-scale behavioural change, and pushing the boundaries of carbon removal technologies, these innovations are more than a response to emissions. They offer a chance for redemption, a promise of regenerative practices that revitalise ecosystems, ensure a just transition, and drive economic growth.

longer abstract concepts in our pursuit of a regenerative future— they’re pathways to prosperity.

The story of our future isn’t only one of mitigating environmental catastrophe and forging resilient, flourishing communities. It’s a narrative where embracing regenerative technologies isn’t just about survival—it’s about creating a world where thriving harmoniously with our planet is the new normal.

Decarbonisation, carbon removal, and climate adaptation are no

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS TO A REGENERATIVE CLIMATE SYSTEM:

REIMAGINING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ENERGY SYSTEMS BY RAPIDLY PHASING OUT FOSSIL FUELS AND SCALING UP ZERO-CARBON ENERGY GENERATION:

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will play a pivotal role in fostering systems change for climate change, biodiversity and planetary regeneration. Renewable energy technologies offer cleaner alternatives, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing pollution that negatively impacts ecosystems. Adopting renewable energy systems can also restore habitats by lessening the pressure on natural landscapes for oil and gas extraction.

DEPLOYING CARBON REMOVAL STRATEGIES WHICH GO BEYOND NET-ZERO CARBON REMOVAL TO ENHANCE ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION, CIRCULAR ECONOMIES, AND NET-POSITIVE PARADIGM CHANGE:

When the outputs of the technology contribute to decarbonisation, it forms a positive feedback loop – a regenerative carbon removal technology which uses the carbon abated as a feedstock for fuels or to create novel materials and goods, substituting either new inputs and extraction, a carbon-intensive process, and fossil fuels.

SCALING SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR A CARBON MARKET OF HIGHQUALITY CREDITS:

The urgency to combat the climate crisis drives the need for a robust carbon market. It demands not just credits but meticulously verified, high-quality carbon offsets that are additional and permanent. This market must not only mitigate emissions but actively champion carbon removal at a scale commensurate with the escalating climate urgency, ensuring a net benefit to our environment.

RESTORE DEGRADED FORESTS AND NATURAL CARBON SINKS:

Reviving degraded ecosystems is imperative to restore the planet’s natural carbon-absorbing capacity. Regenerative technology, employing precision reforestation and advanced agroforestry techniques, is vital in breathing life back into ecosystems, halting biodiversity loss, and maximising carbon sequestration. Nature-based solutions that counter the ocean’s rapid acidification by restoring blue-carbon habitats or enhancing alkalinity can

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also have accelerating positive effects in repairing the world’s most important carbon sink and removing carbon from the ocean and atmosphere.

DEVELOPING AND DEPLOYING ALTERNATIVE FUEL SOLUTIONS:

In the energy transition, shifting toward sustainable fuel options in emissionheavy industries like maritime and aviation is a pressing need. Developing low-energy solutions for ‘green’ and ‘blue’ hydrogen may be a promising avenue to replace fossil-based fuels when electrification is not feasible.

Advanced biofuel solutions—such as algae-based or cellulosic biofuels— hold promise in decarbonising sectors where other solutions fall short.

MODERNISE ENERGY SYSTEMS, GRIDS AND STORAGE:

In shifting to zero-carbon energy, the focus will need to extend beyond the energy source to the provision of energy. This evolution isn’t solely about replacing the power source; it’s an intricate process of reconfiguring the fundamental frameworks that sustain our energy networks. Our energy systems and infrastructures must be rebuilt to be forward-thinking in sustaining energy demand, enabling rapid renewable grid connection, and remaining resilient amidst geopolitical or environmental changes.

DECARBONISING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT:

Tackling emissions from both new and existing infrastructure necessitates a multi-faceted approach. Regenerative technologies, such as building materials made from waste or electrified heating and cooling systems — heat pumps – will need to be made rapidly accessible and deployed in both new and old builds.

EMPOWERING CONSUMERS TO DRIVE A REGENERATIVE ECONOMY:

Transitioning to a climate-friendly economy requires empowering consumers through education, transparent information, incentives, and stricter industry regulations. Fostering a culture that values and incentivises climate-friendly choices will drive the shift towards a regenerative economy and pressure corporations to decarbonise.

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REDUCE DEMAND FOR TRAVEL AND SHIFT TO ZERO-CARBON TRANSPORT:

Transitioning to zero-carbon transportation options is crucial to curbing emissions. Innovative solutions, such as batteries, electric vehicles, and advancements in public transit systems, are pivotal to mitigating the climate impact of transportation.

SCALE UP FINANCE FOR CLIMATE AND NATURE:

Redirecting investments toward technology supporting carbon removal and nature preservation is the defining catalyst in deploying regenerative technologies. This transition in investment seeks to foster a future resilient to climate challenges and grounded in sustainable ecological practices.

SECURING ANTIFRAGILITY AND RESILIENCE THROUGH ADAPTATION SOLUTIONS:

Adaptation solutions take the form of bits (software), atoms (hardware), or a combination of both (software-enabled hardware) to moderate the effects of climate change, bolster resilience, and catalyse ecosystem restoration.

By preventing, detecting, and monitoring extreme weather events, fortifying agricultural production, reinforcing at-risk infrastructure and assets, and curbing heat stress, we can achieve societal, infrastructure, and economic resilience.

SUPPORTING A JUST ENERGY TRANSITION:

Supporting a just energy transition means promoting social and economic equity by ensuring that vulnerable communities have access to clean energy and participate in the economic benefits of new green technologies.

Directing investments into technologies that not only address climate change and reparative justice for environmental inequities, but also opportunities for a green workforce can directly address this lever.

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Amid this existential challenge lies an opportunity.

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A CONVERSATION WITH ALEX GAGNON, CO-FOUNDER, BANYU Alex, you and Julian have spent over a decade studying the impacts of ocean acidification on reef ecosystems. At what point did you pivot from observing the impacts of climate change on living organisms to developing an engineered solution for carbon removal?

Julian and I have always been incredibly motivated to make a tangible difference, not just observe climate change. Our work in chemical oceanography has deeply explored the oceanclimate connection. Only through studying this connection, can we truly understand what the future ocean will look like.

We had been working on a field site together, at an eco-resort in the Teti’aroa in the South Pacific. We were running experiments to understand how extra carbon from human emissions and land use changes could affect the physiology of the reef in both the deep sea and surface ocean. The reef is pristine, making it an excellent place to study how the effects of ocean acidification on corals and other organisms can impact a whole ecosystem.

At Banyu, we embrace the natural exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the oceans. It’s the driving process that sets the composition of the intimately connected systems

on the planet, the ocean and the atmosphere.

But we also are an industrial process. To apply engineering, we have to think less so in terms of biomimicry and more so in physical and chemical lessons from the climate, or from earth systems processes.

A resort on Teti’aroa been deploying a cooling system that pumps cold water up from the deep sea to cools their buildings. They were pumping huge amounts of carbon-rich water from the deep sea, allowing us to witness the carbon moving in and out onto the reef, simulating what ocean acidification could look like at the end of the century.

It was at this point that we were confronted by the engineering challenge of how to move large amounts of carbon both into and out of seawater. We began to define the problem and think about a solution at scale. Photoacids had been in development for a long time, and we saw the opportunity to bring them together with seawater to perform carbon removal at scale, with very low energy inputs. It was at that point that the pendulum started to swing away from studying the oceans, and towards trying to prevent the worst of the impacts of climate change from happening to the oceans and to the planet.

Dr Alex Gagnon founded Banyu Carbon, ReGen’s first investment into technical carbon removal, alongside his longtime research collaborator Dr Julian Sachs. Alex is a chemical oceanographer and geochemist by trade, teaching and researching at the University of Washington, where he studies the connections between climate and carbon in the past, present, and future ocean with a focus on ocean acidification and coral reefs. Gagnon earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from California Institute of Technology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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“At Banyu, we embrace the natural exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the oceans.”

You’ve spoken about grounding the problem of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and ocean with an ecosystem scale perspective. How do you frame direct carbon removal from oceans through a whole systems approach? Have you drawn inspiration from natural processes in designing the first principles of Banyu’s technology?

Thinking in systems about the oceans, climate and carbon is deeply ingrained. The oceans are the largest exchangeable reservoir of carbon on the planet, and when you think about the climate, you have to think about carbon. For eight years I taught a class on marine biogeochemical cycles that brought physics, chemistry, biology and geology together.

A key lesson was that when you think about biogeochemical cycles, including carbon cycles, and the ocean’s connection to climate, you have to unpack all these overlapping systems first.

The lesson is that to address climate, we need a process that removes the root cause, the pollutant, rather than fundamentally changing the ocean to accommodate our waste. Carbon dioxide is the main pollutant that causes climate change. And the ocean is at the centre of climate.

Approaches to marine carbon dioxide removal

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that change the capacity of the ocean to uptake carbon dioxide are fundamentally changing the ocean in some new direction. This is concerning philosophically, as well as also from a social licence perspective. This is what drove us to work on a process that’s doing direct carbon dioxide removal from seawater. We need to clean up our mess, rather than tweak the world by engineering a new approach that piles impact onto impact.

Look at the root cause, unpack, roll back the clock, regenerate the planet.

While removing carbon from the ocean and atmosphere is crucial, your technology flips the script by also generating clean energy.

Can you shed light on how this simplified process upends the traditional capital and energy intensive approach to carbon capture?

One of the main challenges of current approaches to carbon dioxide removal is that many of them are energy intensive. While many approaches can be supported by renewable energy, the issue is that renewable energy should really be used for greening the grid. We need that renewable energy now to prevent further carbon emissions. The best carbon removal ultimately is preventing more emissions in the first place.

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A CONVERSATION WITH ALEX GAGNON, CO-FOUNDER, BANYU

It was fundamentally important that our approach wouldn’t burden the grid or use fossil energy sources to support carbon removal.

We challenged ourselves to have organically complementary processes to both produce energy and carbon removal. This means considering both how to keep the process low energy, and opportunities to couple energy generation into the system without overcomplicating it or stacking several approaches that aren’t actually that good in isolation.

Sunlight is the largest source of free energy in the solar system. It’s also a fundamental part of our removal process. The unused part of that solar spectrum can be harvested for energy without any additional land for electricity production or energy from the grid. By tying our approach for carbon removal to sunlight, it’s fundamentally complementary for electricity generation. We’ve predicted that we’re able to generate energy on the net, which we’re really excited to prove out at scale.

water we produce should help counteract the impacts of ocean acidification. We have a chance to be closer to reefs and to generate jobs for communities that are farther from the grid than other places.

But equally importantly, many of the aspects of the process already exist. Inventing a new field comes with risk, but many of the key steps of our process are relatively low risk and have been scaled before. You can think of it as wastewater treatment, reducing the impacts of industrial processes like pollutants. The order of magnitude of seawater needed to remove 500,000 tons of carbon per year is being processed at existing individual facilities for energy generation and desalination. It’s easily imaginable then that we can get to a billion tons with two thousand of those sites, a relatively low fraction of the total that already exist around the planet. A similar scale facility of DAC would use all the air handlers on the planet and all the office buildings in California, Washington, and Oregon combined.

Taking a groundbreaking idea from the lab to meeting the mandate of our changing climate is no small feat. What is the most promising advantage you see in your early-stage solution to unlocking gigaton-level carbon removal?

A key competitive advantage and differentiation is our low energy intensity and closed-loop system. By not relying on the grid we also unlock the ability to operate in many different locations. We’re not tied to a low carbon infrastructure. There’s the potential to bring some co-benefits to a site for example the

Banyu Carbon is entering a dynamic CDR space with diverse players. Do you view the landscape as a race to the finish line or a collaborative effort?

It’s really collaborative. Just last week we travelled to New Orleans to meet with a bunch of marine carbon dioxide removal companies, and had been to Houston meeting with people in the sustainable fuel ecosystem. It’s been an incredibly collaborative experience, partially because of the enormity of the challenge.

The Pacific Northwest turns out to be a

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really cool place to do this work – it’s becoming a centre of excellence for marine carbon dioxide removal. We’re all cheering each other on while making clear, important distinctions about our approaches. A lot of us care about science, and all of us care about the planet – those are the things that all unify us.

What are the most unexpected ways in which your process has positive co-benefits or regenerative impacts that we might not have thought about?

Human welfare is intimately tied with the ocean. It’s a fundamental observation – the poorer you are, the more you receive protein from fish, reefs, and marine systems that are really sensitive to ocean acidification and the impacts of the changing climate. Understanding that these are the same people most impacted by climate change, alongside local industries, is a critical part of tying carbon removal to ocean systems.

The potential to make refuges for ocean acidification will be huge for aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest. The outflow from our process, going into aquaculture, could help protect some of these commercially and incredibly culturally important industries in our own backyard.

Having a pure stream of CO2 as feedstock also opens up all these other industries that rely on green carbon. If you want to create sustainable fuels, you need carbon dioxide that doesn’t come from fossil fuels. To the extent that we solve that problem, we really unlock the door for the greening of industrial processes. That’s a prospect I’m really excited about.

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“Thinking in systems about the oceans, climate and carbon is deeply ingrained.

The oceans are the largest exchangeable reservoir of carbon on the planet, and when you think about the climate, you have to think about carbon.”

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TOOLS FOR A REGENERATIVE WORLD

FIG 4, HARMONISED SYSTEM: THE PLANETARY SYSTEMS ARE FULLY REGENERATED AND INTERCONNECTED, WITH ALL ECOSYSTEMS FUNCTIONING IN HARMONY. EFFICIENT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND BIODIVERSITY FLOURISH, LEADING TO A RESILIENT AND THRIVING PLANET.

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Aigen

— integrates breakthrough technologies to eradicate chemicals from our food system.

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AIGEN’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

NOVEL ENTITIES

CLIMATE CHANGE

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing Increasing risk

CO2 concentration

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

FRESHWATER CHANGE P

N

BIOGEOCHEMICAL FLOWS

THE PROBLEM:

Agriculture has grown increasingly dependent on herbicides and insecticides to control weeds, fungi, and pests that crowd cropland.

As a result of these chemicals travelling into the soil and damaging the microbial ecosystem supporting our crops, US croplands are now eroding 10 times faster than they can be replenished. Our agricultural system faces growing demand and yet is fundamentally threatened by the impacts of industrial practices, depleted ecosystems, climate change, and labour shortages. Growers will face immense pressure to meet this demand. They are confronted with a choice — either depend on more chemical inputs, expand land-use, and extract more resources – or transition to regenerative farming practices using existing solutions which presently are less effective, have a higher cost, and are hard to integrate into standard operations.

OUTPUTS:

Aigen is launching the world’s first AI-driven, networked robotic fleet, powered entirely by the elements, and building a future with no harmful chemicals in our food. The Aigen element will start by replacing chemical weed control in agriculture and are making steady progress towards using AI to collect and deliver valuable data insights for growers.

THE SCALE:

Aigen’s platform applies to over 25 crops planted across 363 million acres worldwide, presenting a market of over 30 billion US dollars for regenerative plant management.

THE OUTCOME:

Unlocking a future of farming that supports ecosystems, sequesters carbon, and provides for our growing population.

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Aigen

FOUNDERS: Founders: Kenny Lee is a serial founder with over 17 years of experience in product including a former exit at $60M USD. Kenny holds an MBA from MIT. Richard Wurden has spent his career finding lowcost, unique ways to solve challenging engineering problems in the EV space at Tesla and Watercraft.

Rich is deeply empathetic towards the issues facing growers today, as his relatives own Wurden Farms in Minnesota, which focuses on sorghum, sugarbeet, and several other crops.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION:

Aigen’s technology could offset 3.16 Gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2e per year – stemming from herbicide production, spray tractor emissions, tillage tractor emissions, grassland conversions, and forest conversions.

ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR HERBICIDES:

The scalable robotics platform will remove weeds without chemical inputs, which supports natural soil ecosystems and human health.

REGENERATING SOIL HEALTH:

Aigen creates the conditions for healthy soil to sequester 5.65 Gt of CO2e per year, equivalent to $84Bn in revenue at $15/tonne.

ENABLING LARGESCALE REGENERATIVE TRANSFORMATION:

The machine’s first feature – non-invasive weeding - displaces growers’ reliance on tilling and chemical inputs at ~82 percent cost saving to farmers. Meanwhile, Aigen’s ability to increase and measure soil carbon sequestration sows the seeds to diversify farmers’ income streams through the carbon markets.

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Arch

— transforming how we heat and cool our homes.

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ARCH’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

“An electricity transformation is undeniably possible … The speed of transformation is the issue at hand.”

– Project Drawdown.

Radiative forcing

perating spa fe o ce Sa

THE PROBLEM:

The vast majority of home carbon footprint comes from heating, cooling, and hot water. This accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems account for up to 50% of a commercial building’s energy use and dominate peak electricity demand. The upside is that the technologies needed to decarbonise renewable and efficient grids already exist, but face difficulty in scaling deployment. Despite the potential to benefit economically from transitioning to efficient zero-emissions heating and cooling systems, obstacles of complexity, cost, and inconvenience have disempowered homeowners and service providers from participating in the critical transition needed to meet our climate and emissions goals.

SOLUTION:

Arch’s software platform makes it easy for consumers, installers, and vendors to decarbonize homes with new technologies, such as heat pumps, which face increased installation difficulties and long payback periods. The company builds tools that enable HVAC professionals to identify quality leads and support them through the product lifecycle from design and installation to maintenance.

THE SCALE:

In Europe alone, heat pump sales are expected to double by 2026, which would mean installing about 16.5 million additional units in the next five years (McKinsey). In 2022, US annual sales of heat pumps outpaced the sales of gas-powered furnaces for the first time.

THE OUTCOME:

Rapidly deployed zero-carbon heating and cooling solutions to meet the urgent needs of decarbonisation.

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Arch

FOUNDERS: Arch was conceived in 2021 by Philipp Krinner and Sacha Schmitz. The company combines Philipp’s energy industry expertise through his work at Krinner Group, one of the world’s largest solar installers, with Sacha’s enterprise SaaS insights, having founded and run product management at Whispli, backed by YCombinator, Blackbird, Pioneer, and Airtree Ventures.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISING THE EXISTING BUILT ENVIRONMENT:

Most residential HVAC energy use depends on natural gas and accounts for ~10 percent of global GHG emissions. Arch will empower consumers and small businesses to reduce significant carbon emissions and reap the positive planetary externalities through the economic benefits of home energy savings.

SUPPORTING A JUST ENERGY TRANSITION:

By 2050, Arch’s software could eliminate 100m tonnes of residential emissions annually, while supporting an economy of contractors growing their businesses around the goal of residential electrification and energy efficiency.

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Arkeon

— making carbon-negative food ingredients.

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ARKEON’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

e operating sp Saf ac e

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Protein production has an outsized impact on climate change. Cattle ranching dominates many of the most unique and sensitive ecosystems around the world, from the great plains of North America, to the Brazilian Amazon, and the Great Barrier Reef watershed in Australia. Despite its demands on water, land, and energy, beef consumption is increasing with the global population. Animal protein consumption has increased by roughly 44 pounds per person, with the steepest gain in low- and middle-income countries.

SOLUTION:

Arkeon is building a programmable, protein platform that converts CO2 into functional proteins – essentially a cattle ranch in a bioreactor. This will unlock the next generation of plant-based meat and dairy products with vastly improved taste, texture and performance, without the carbon, methane, or land-use impact of industrial animal husbandry. Their gas fermentation production process will deliver up to 2x cheaper alternative proteins that will replace animal, soy and pea proteins in the plant-based meat market, ultimately unlocking cheaper and better tasting alternatives to animal agriculture.

THE SCALE:

The global amino acids market was valued at $26 billion USD in 2023, and is set to grow at a rate of 7% annually.

THE OUTCOME:

A future where protein consumption shifts from carbon intensive to carbon negative.

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Arkeon

FOUNDERS: After a career-long study of protein functionalisation, Dr. Gregor Tegl (CEO) was inspired to found Arkeon with Dr. Simon Rittman and Dr. Günther Bochmann. While reseraching methane producing Archaea, Simon discovered that this novel mircoorganism excreted amino acids. Combined with Gunther’s leadership in gas fermentation research, the team’s combined insights into microorganisms, food functionality, and scaling gas fermentation systems led them on the epic journey to convert carbon dioxide into healthier, more bioavailable and tuneable proteins.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISING AGRICULTURE:

Scaling up alternative proteins alongside regenerative agriculture may achieve up to 20 percent of the emissions mitigation needed to stay below 1.5°C by the half-century while creating products people want more of without the negative impacts.

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT RICH DIETS THROUGH ACCESSIBLE AND QUALITY ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS:

Arkeon’s protein platform enables cheaper, better tasting alternative proteins. Existing sources are up to twice as expensive and have the incorrect flavour or texture which must be masked with additives. This leads to inferior products with minimal variety, and a limited ability to entice individuals to switch away from animal products.

TRANSITIONING TOWARDS A CIRCULAR ECONOMY:

By using carbon dioxide as an input, Arkeon is both putting a price on a waste byproduct and transitioning towards a food and agricultural system that relies on carbon-negative, renewable feedstocks rather than expanding onto new land or consuming feedstocks that compete with demand for food.

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Asterix

— a dairy cow in a bioreactor.

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ASTERIX’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

e operating sp Saf ac e

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

In the United States, dairy cows produce 63 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions every year. All the while, they generate massive amounts of manure waste, which has been linked to contaminated water resources and nitrous oxide emissions. Cheese production on its own is estimated to result in between 8 and 13 kilograms of Co2 equivalent embedded in each kilogram of cheese.

At a total global cheese production of 22 million tonnes, this represents nearly a third of a gigaton of CO2 equivalent emissions per year. Despite advances in alternative milks and meats, alt- cheeses on the market are not suitable replacements for animal cheese. Alternative cheeses have failed to perform well from a texture, performance (melt/stretch), and/or flavour perspective. This is reflected in poor market adoption vs alternative milk (<1% vs 15%+).

SOLUTION:

Asterix is building a protein production platform that solves the primary problem: a functional gap in first generation protein synthesis. The company’s breakthrough focuses on the production of the key element of functional proteins: Glycoproteins. Using plant-cell culture techniques, the team are growing dairy proteins (to start) that are bioactive, meaning they actually perform essential functions such as gelling, emulsions, and coagulation. This unlocks complex products – cheeses – with structure and matrix requirements that other plant-based cheese companies can’t produce. In short, this opens up a massive, previously unaddressable section of the cheese market, and catalyses a transition away from relying on mass production of animal products to plant-based alternatives.

THE SCALE:

The plant based cheese market sat at $1.4 Billion USD in 2023, and is expected to grow at a staggering compound annual rate of 16.7% to 2030.

THE OUTCOME:

Unlocking complex dairy products without animal agriculture.

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Asterix

FOUNDERS: Dan Even has a Masters degree in Biotechnology.

Before founding Asterix, Dan was completing his PhD in Plant Molecular Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel when he dropped out to lead his first dairy-focused company, Fantastic Farms. As a lifelong vegetarian, Dan has a very strong stance on animal ethics, and is passionate about Asterix’s role in re-inventing a food chain that is entirely animal-free.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISING DAIRY PRODUCTS:

Dairy cows add substantial amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and often contribute to the conversion of natural habitat to agricultural land due to the increasing demand for feed crops such as corn, alfalfa and soy. Asterix is at the forefront of solutions to end reliance on industrial dairy systems and products.

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT RICH DIETS THROUGH GOOD-TASTING ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS AND FOODS:

By solving for a key misalignment in protein synthesis, Asterix is developing the missing piece in the puzzle to address segments of the massive plantbased market that others can’t. A focus on quality and taste is critical to appeal to consumers on the fringe of adopting plant rich diets.

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Banyu

— enabling lowcost marine carbon removal, powered by sunlight.

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BANYU CARBON’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

perating spa fe o ce Sa

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

THE PROBLEM:

The IPCC’s latest report states that limiting warming to 1.5°C, which still harms people and the planet, requires 6-10 Gt of direct carbon dioxide removal annually starting immediately. However, the potential capacity of all current and planned carbon projects will barely reach one gigaton of CDR annually. Thus, we must adopt solutions that evolve societal behaviors to reduce emissions, scale nature-based solutions to restore ecosystems, and develop high-quality CDR methods to remove surplus emissions. Over the past decade, many companies have built direct air capture facilities that require extensive land, infrastructure, and energy to absorb CO2 from the air. Meanwhile, the global ocean naturally absorbs nearly a third of all carbon dioxide emissions, contains about 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, and plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change.

SOLUTION:

Banyu Carbon, a Seattle-based startup, is developing the most cost-effective and scalable method for high-quality direct carbon dioxide removal by stripping CO2 from seawater while producing more renewable electricity than it consumes. The company’s CDR approach uses a proprietary, light-activated photoacid that temporarily acidifies seawater, liberating CO2 without straining the grid and generating net electricity as a byproduct.

THE SCALE:

McKinsey estimates the carbon removal market will be valued at over a trillion US dollars by 2050, and with 2023 and 2024 key inflection points in deployment and growth in the industry.

THE OUTCOME:

A new era of scalable, carbon sequestration, where solar energy can produce permanent carbon removal while restoring ecosystems and providing a pure stream of carbon dioxide.

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Banyu

FOUNDERS: Banyu was founded in 2022 by Julian Sachs and Alex Gagnon, Professors of Chemical Oceanography at the University of Washington.

Before deciding to develop a simple, affordable carbon removal process, the duo spent over a decade as field research collaborators in the South Pacific studying how ocean acidification would impact coral reefs. In aggregate, they have published over 130 peer-reviewed publications, garnered more than 9,000citations, raised over $12m in grants for ocean carbon and climate science research, and presented before the National Academies of Science. Alex (PhD Chemistry, Caltech) is an NSF CAREER awardee.

Sachs (PhD Chemical Oceanography, MIT) is an organic geochemistry and climate scientist with decades of experience in the field.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DEPLOYING CARBON REMOVAL STRATEGIES WHICH GO BEYOND NET-ZERO CARBON REMOVAL TO ENHANCE ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION, CIRCULAR ECONOMIES, AND NET-POSITIVE PARADIGM CHANGE.

Banyu’s process allows for carbon removal without requiring large amounts of power from the grid during the energy transition. Moreover, it produces several co-benefits beyond carbon removal – a pure stream of CO2, which can be utilised in other industries and contribute to the circular economy; excess solar energy, meaning the energy impact is net-positive.

DEVELOPING AND DEPLOYING ALTERNATIVE FUEL SOLUTIONS.

Shifting toward sustainable fuel options in emission-heavy industries like maritime and aviation is a pressing need in the energy transition. Banyu is exploring options to partner with the aviation industry to utilise the CO2 captured for the research and development of sustainable aviation fuels. If the CO2 Banyu captures is used to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the net emissions impact of that fuel would be a ~ 90% reduction in carbon intensity relative to conventional jet fuel.

RESTORE DEGRADED FORESTS AND NATURAL CARBON SINKS.

By returning deacidified seawater, Banyu is restoring the health of marine habitats and improving the ocean’s ability to sequester and store carbon.

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BurnBot

— transforming our relationship with fire.

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BURNBOT’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Megafires, fueled by a deadly combination of climate change and inadequate management, pose a growing threat to both ecosystems and infrastructure. In 2022 alone, wildfires released a staggering 5.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, exceeding any single country’s emissions except China.

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

FRESHWATER CHANGE P

N

BIOGEOCHEMICAL FLOWS

THE PROBLEM:

This trend is expected to worsen, creating a feedback loop where more frequent and destructive megafires further contribute to climate change, accounting for up to 18% of annual CO2 emissions in some years. Prescribed burning, a method where controlled fires manage fuel buildup in forests, offers a promising solution.

Historically, 4.5 million acres of US forest burned annually, maintaining a healthy tree density of 40-60 per acre. Today, forests are five times denser, creating a tinderbox for megafires. Governments are met with immense pressure to improve wildfire prevention and management, but face challenges including high costs, labor shortages, the risk of uncontrolled fires, smoke pollution, and limited suitable weather conditions. These hurdles impede our ability to safeguard both vital ecosystems and vulnerable human infrastructure.

SOLUTION:

BurnBot addresses the threat of catastrophic wildfires by scaling ‘Good Fire’—low-intensity, controlled burns to reduce hazardous fuel loads and restore landscapes. This robotic platform provides safe, smoke-free prescribed burning options at over 50% lower costs than existing methods.

BurnBot operates in any weather, acts as a force multiplier for labor, and extends the range and time window for burning activities. This can reduce wildfire intensity by nearly ten times, resulting in 80% less smoke and carbon emissions, significantly lower firefighting and recovery costs, and benefits to the environment, people, and wildlife.

THE SCALE:

In the United States alone, 20 million acres of land in the grassland-urban interface need treatment for wildfire mitigation.

THE OUTCOME:

A force-multiplier to protect land ecosystems and human infrastructure from catastrophic wildfires.

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BurnBot

FOUNDERS: CEO Anukool Lakhina (PhD Computer Science, Boston University) lived through the Australian wildfires while his wife Shefali was doing her PhD on wildfire risk reduction and recovery.

After moving back to California where they were further impacted by wildfires, they founded Wonder Labs to research and fund solutions to urgent environmental issues. Alongside his cofounder and CTO Dr. Lee Haddad (PhD Physics, Illinois Tech) and former hot-shot firefighter Simon Weibel, the team founded Burnbot to embark on the extraordinary mission to prevent deadly mega wildfires.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

RESTORE DEFORESTED AND DEGRADED LANDS:

Fire is an integral force in the Earth system and a critical tool for land stewardship, and burning is necessary to clear organic material and fuel loads, contribute to seed germination, and cycle nutrients. Burnbot’s platform enables safe burning as an ecological necessity, while protecting infrastructure and preventing out of control burns caused by poor land stewardship. Fire can also be an effective treatment of invasive plant species and herbicide resistant weeds.

SHARPLY REDUCE POLLUTION AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS:

By managing fuel loads to safe levels, creating protected lines to allow for safe burning, and performing mitigation without releasing smoke, Burnbot can prevent mega-fires which increase emissions and reduce air pollution from burning infrastructure and prescribed burns.

UPHOLDING AND REPLICATING INDIGENOUS STEWARDSHIP PRACTICES:

Indigenous people of Australia and the Americas have been undertaking traditional fire management for thousands of years. Burnbot’s approach of using controlled burns to manage underbrush is inspired by cultural practices that have taken place in the country for millenia.

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Circe

— transforming carbon emissions into fats, foods, and flavour.

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CIRCE’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

While the appetite for plant-based products is vast and the sector is already experiencing notable growth, it’s still early days. The majority still vote with their taste buds. When creating plant-based alternatives to confectionaries, dairy, and beef, key building blocks of flavour and mouthfeel come from the fatty molecules found in foods. Current alternatives attempt to approximate fat using a growing number of oils (such as palm oil), which leads to inferior taste and extractive practices. Between tropical deforestation, factory farming, and industrial agriculture, chocolate production generates dairy, and beef production collectively produces at minimum 100 kilogram CO2 per kilogram.

SOLUTION:

Circe’s gas fermentation-based platform uses engineered microbes that consume C02 and Hydrogen (H2) to produce a wide range of tailored fats.

The result is dairy-free milk products, carbon-free confectionary products and animal-free meat products that are molecularly identical to the original products.

THE SCALE:

In total, the company’s technology has an existing TAM of more than $1.65 trillion dollars, across chocolate, meat, and dairy products.

THE OUTCOME:

Circe’s molecularly identical but regeneratively produced fats can unlock a massive shift to carbon-negative meat, dairy, chocolate, and more.

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Circe

FOUNDERS: Dr. Shannon Nangle (PhD, Structural Biology, University of Washington) and Dr. Marika Ziesack (PhD, Biologic and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University) have been working together for more than four years at Harvard developing methods for engineering and culturing bacteria to generate sustainable materials. It was through the Wyss Institute that they began commercialising a fermentation system to turn carbon dioxide into fats. They have spent years working with this specific microbe to engineer tailored, high-impact ingredients.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION:

Circe’s platform deviates away from carbon-intensive fat production methods, from animals to cacao and oil palm trees.

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT RICH DIETS THROUGH GOOD-TASTING ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS AND FOODS:

Consumer adoption of alternative protein, dairy and other foods is limited by the lack of plant-based fats that replicate animal products. Circe’s molecularly identical but regeneratively produced fats will enable a paradigm shift to carbon-negative meat, dairy, chocolate, and more. In doing so, the company can eliminate the trade-off between deliciousness and sustainability by producing tasty and nutritious foods without sacrificing the environment.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY:

Circe’s use of CO2 as an input prevents more GHGs from entering the atmosphere, and uses an industrial waste or carbon removal byproduct as an input to create new materials.

UTILISATION OF SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY IN ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION:

Circe’s process can stymie biodiversity loss by replacing supply chains that are land, water, species, and chemical-intensive.

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Clean Crop

— using cold plasma to pasteurise foods.

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CLEAN CROP TECHNOLOGIES’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

e operating sp Saf ac e

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Between the farm gate and consumers, 10% of food is lost to food contaminants (toxins, pathogens, yeasts, and moulds) every year. Put another way, $250 billion worth of calories are wasted, which ultimately contribute ~3 percent of global GHG emissions from landfill methane.

These contaminants, including aflatoxin and salmonella, do more than eat into growers’ margins and harm the environment – causing 600 million cases of food-borne illness and 480,000 preventable deaths annually.

With climate change increasing the conditions (e.g., soil temperature and drought) that cause in-field contamination outbreaks and tightening government regulations, agricultural supply chains need to adopt tools that reduce waste, improve safety, and preserve quality.

SOLUTION:

By combining a proprietary high voltage cold plasma reactor with blends of ionised gases, Clean Crop is developing a range of seed performance and decontamination tools for the indoor and conventional ag industries.

THE SCALE:

Clean Crop’s platform technology has a $30 billion addressable market spanning major agricultural commodities, including nuts, grains, seeds, spices, produce, meat, seafood, and more.

THE OUTCOME:

Using electricity to curb waste and unlock cleaner seeds, better germination, vigour, and yields.

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Clean Crop

FOUNDERS: Daniel White (CEO) and Daniel Cavanagh (COO) founded Clean Crop Technologies out of deep frustration with food loss due to contamination.

They joined forces with Dr. Kevin Keener, the leading expert in plasma for food safety. Together, Clean Crop’s founding team combines 25 years of global agricultural supply chain experience with leading expertise in plasma for food safety, chemical & mechanical engineering, material science, and AI-driven R&D.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DECARBONISING THE AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD SYSTEMS:

Food waste creates 3 percent of global GHG emissions from landfills. By 2050, Clean Crop has the potential to avoid up to 1.4 Gigatons of C02 emissions per year.

TRANSFORM FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN APPROACHES TO REDUCING WASTE, IMPROVING SAFETY, AND PRESERVING QUALITY:

Clean Crop’s approach can dramatically improve shelf-life, safety, and durability of food and seeds will be critical to reducing food loss and waste and ensuring our agricultural resources are being used efficiently. At scale, Clean Crop has the potential to prevent millions of cases of food-borne illness and usher in a new standard of treatment for solid foods akin to pasteurisation for liquids.

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FACE PLANT

— the 20th century McDonald’s, sans meat.

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FACE PLANT’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

e operating sp Saf ac e

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Fast-food accounts for nearly half of out-of-home consumption of beef, chicken, and pork, respectively. QSR is the single biggest channel for meat consumption in America. While nearly 60% of Gen Z are vegan, vegetarian, or trying to limit meat consumption, finding plant-based food that’s fast & cheap outside the home has either been nonexistent or utterly unappealing.

These conscious consumers, which have an increasing buying power, also eat 20% more fast food than the average American.

SOLUTION:

FACE PLANT strives to become the 20th century McDonald’s, sans meat.

The company uses a drive-thru heavy service to minimise consumer behaviour change with a low cost 100% plant based menu. FACE PLANT has the potential to avoid gigatonnes of GHG emissions, in addition to utilising far less land, water, and energy for the cultivation of crops instead of livestock.

THE SCALE:

The global quick service restaurant industry is poised to exceed $1T in revenue by 2027. The burger segment, in particular, represents 30% of the +$281Bn US market.

THE OUTCOME:

Shifting away from mass consumption of animal products towards consumption of plant-based alternatives at scale.

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FACE PLANT

FOUNDERS: FACE PLANT was founded by Matt Plitch, who previously built Neutral – the world’s first carbon-neutral food company. After launching Neutral nationally with Whole Foods in 2021, Matt began developing the idea for FACE PLANT after realising the largest scale of climate impact would require shifting everyday consumers eating habits with minimal behaviour change. To do so, Matt enlisted Molly Baz, a 2021 New York Times bestselling cookbook author, as FACE PLANT’s Head of Culinary. Since then, the duo has been busy conducting menu R&D, scouting locations for Restaurant 1, and refining this category-defining brand.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT RICH DIETS THROUGH NUTRITIOUS, ACCESSIBLE, AND GOOD-TASTING FOODS:

FACE PLANT’s model minimises consumer behavioural change by creating widely available and affordable plant-based options in a familiar QSR experience and infrastructure, FACE PLANT lowers the threshold to adopting plant-rich diets by making the option convenient and accessible, and feeds the latent demand in consumers who are already trying to limit meat consumption.

REDUCE LAND-USE CONVERSION FOR AGRICULTURE.

The fast food industry is estimated to grow at a rate of 5% annually through the end of the decade, putting pressure on existing agricultural supply chains to fulfil the demand for beef, chicken, and pork. While any form of agriculture will always come with land-use tradeoff, by removing meat products, FACE PLANT has the potential to use far less land, water, and energy for the cultivation of crops instead of livestock.

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Future

— financially rewarding climate smart lifestyles.

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FUTURE’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

perating spa fe o ce Sa

THE PROBLEM:

An estimated 66 percent of carbon emissions stem from the decisions we make every day about how we live, eat and move. Insufficient information, greenwashing tactics, and a lack of awareness about the environmental impacts of daily choices prevents many consumers from informed decisionmaking. Convenience, inadequate incentives, policies, and the absence of strict regulations limit consumers’ opportunities to opt for the climate friendly option, and fail to provide an incentive for businesses to provide one.

SOLUTION:

Future is a FinTech platform promoting a regenerative economy by rewarding consumers for making climate-friendly purchases. They offer a debit card targeting the impact of our daily decisions by enabling, rewarding, and verifying low-carbon transactions. Unlike most cards, which reward activities like flying or dining out, the FutureCard gives 6% cash back for climate-smart spending—whether it be commuting on public transport, using electric charging stations, riding bikes & scooters, thrifting secondhand clothes, and more—and 1% for everything else. In doing so, the company is making climate action a smart economic choice, saving consumers cash and drawing down carbon at the same time.

THE SCALE:

In 2023, the FutureCard gained over 17,000 users, formed partnerships with Volkswagen, Backmarket, Allbirds, REI, Patagonia, Citibike, Arcadia, and more, and generated nearly $1 million in revenue. Long-term, Future will create the leading carbon management platform, democratizing climatesmart living with financial tools and incentives that make the regenerative choice the obvious choice.

THE OUTCOME:

Environmental value of financial transactions embedded into consumers’ pocketbooks, accelerating the transformation towards a regenerative economy.

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Future

FOUNDERS: Future was founded in 2021 by Jean-Louis Warnholz and Kamal Bhattacharya. Before Future, Jean-Louis spent his career in the public sector supporting economic development in emerging markets as a Senior Advisor in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office; a Senior Advisor at the Soros Economic Development Fund, the World Bank, and S&P Global Ratings; and a researcher at the Economics Department at the University of Oxford.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

TRANSFORMING ECONOMIC INCENTIVES FOR LIVING CAPITAL:

By incentivising decisions that avoid or reduce emissions, creates a marketplace rewarding regenerative financial decisions, valuing actions that contribute to ecological restoration, shifting economic incentives toward valuing environmental health.

EMPOWERING CONSUMERS FOR A REGENERATIVE ECONOMY:

By enabling, verifying, and incentivizing transactions that cut emissions and support sustainability, Future establishes a marketplace where consumers actively drive a regenerative economy, encouraging sustainable consumption while empowering individuals to shape a better future.

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FORAY

— creating plant products without harming plants.

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FORAY BIOSCIENCE’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

NOVEL ENTITIES

CLIMATE CHANGE

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Genetic

Functional

Radiative forcing Increasing risk

CO2 concentration

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Since the last great ice age, the world has lost one-third of its forests. Two billion hectares—an area twice the size of the U.S.—have been cleared for urbanization, crops, livestock, fuelwood, and wood-based products. Natural materials from trees often suffer from inconsistent quality, limited availability, poor supply chain traceability, and regulatory barriers. Climate change effects like drought, disease, pests, and wildfires increase tree mortality and supply chain volatility. Additionally, the demand for commercial forests has caused a severe shortage of seeds needed for regeneration and reforestation.

SOLUTION:

FORAY Bio is a Cambridge-based startup developing a biomanufacturing toolkit to reduce tree cutting (with treeless tree products) and accelerate forest restoration (with on-demand, diverse tree seeds). The company uses plant cell culture technology to grow tree “stem” cells outside the tree, steering their development to efficiently produce various treeless goods.

THE SCALE:

Nature’s amenities, such as raw materials and ecosystem services, are valued at an estimated $125 trillion annually. Trees alone contribute over a trillion dollars to the global economy annually across multiple markets, including food, beauty and cosmetics, therapeutics, and wood-based materials.

THE OUTCOME:

A first-of-its-kind toolkit to harness the unique biology and diversity of the entire plant kingdom to make production of biomaterials and products possible across new plant species and applications ranging from forestry to agriculture and therapeutics.

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FORAY

FOUNDERS: Ashley Beckwith (PhD, Mechanical Engineering, MIT) founded FORAY after completing her PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT. During her academic career, Ashley’s multidisciplinary research spanned bioengineering, biomaterials, product design, and advanced manufacturing to bring plant production into the lab.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

UTILISING SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY FOR ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION ALTERNATIVES:

Foray enables the growth of tree “stem” cells outside of the tree and steers the development of these cells to efficiently produce a wide variety of treeless goods from molecules to seeds and more. Compared to conventional methods, FORAY produces the same valuable plant-derived products our economy relies on with significantly less land requirements, downstream processing, or waste, in controllable formats insulated from climate change, adverse weather, and crop diseases.

SCALING BIOSYNTHETIC ALTERNATIVES WITH RENEWABLE FEEDSTOCKS:

Plant cell cultures can utilise a wide array of feedstocks, including agricultural waste or other organic materials that might otherwise contribute to environmental degradation. This approach minimises the reliance on limited resources and reduces the environmental impact associated with sourcing raw materials.

RESTORING DEGRADED FORESTS AND CARBON SINKS:

By producing treeless tree products and creating an alternative to traditional resource extraction, Foray supports the preservation and regeneration of ecosystems and their vital role in sequestering carbon dioxide.. Down the line, Foray can increase natural carbon sinks by offering government agencies, reforestation organisations, NGOs, and forestry companies a stable supply of diverse tree seeds to meet ambitious reforestation and restoration targets.

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Pact

— designing transformative biomaterials to revolutionise the textile industry.

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PACT’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

NOVEL ENTITIES

CLIMATE CHANGE

Radiative forcing Increasing risk

CO2 concentration

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Demand for leather contributes to the viability of cattle production, which is responsible for 25% of global land-use emissions. The downstream leather production process relies on toxic chemicals and heavy metals: 84% of chemicals used in the leather dying process end up in waterways and one study estimated that 90% of Bangladeshi leather workers die before age 50 due to heavy metal exposure during the tanning process.

SOLUTION:

Pact is creating a leather alternative using collagen sourced from industrial food waste. At scale, Pact aims to produce cow-less leather cheaper, faster, and more customizable than anything on the market today.

THE OUTCOME:

Advanced materials, all made from a rich natural protein found in waste products.

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Pact

FOUNDERS: Yudi Ding (PhD Organic Chemistry, University of Cambridge) developed an extraction technique that would form the basis of Hide leather, after years of pursuing alternative approaches to create synthetic leathers. Co-founder Niels Ramay holds a Masters in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics from Ecole Normale Supérieure, and holds a passion for technology’s role to innovatively solve the climate crisis. Together, Yudi and Niels are unstoppable in their pursuit of revolutionising the global leather market.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

DETOXIFYING MATERIALS ACROSS THE SUPPLY CHAIN:

Traditional leather production involves chemical-intensive processes and often uses toxic substances like chromium in tanning. However, by sourcing collagen from food waste, Pact eliminates the need for such harmful chemicals, thereby detoxifying the production process. Additionally, they aim to ensure that other components used in their material production are eco-friendly and non-toxic, contributing to detoxification across the supply chain.

ADDRESSING LEGACY WASTE STREAMS:

Pact contributes to detoxifying the industry by repurposing industrial food waste to create their leather alternative. By diverting this waste from landfills or incineration, they address legacy waste streams, preventing the release of pollutants and reducing the environmental impact associated with waste disposal.

SCALING BIOSYNTHETIC ALTERNATIVES USING RENEWABLE FEEDSTOCKS AND WASTE:

By sourcing collagen from industrial food waste, PACT is utilising renewable feedstocks and waste as inputs for their cow-less leather production.

Moreover, their approach follows a circular economy model by repurposing waste as a valuable input, minimising the overall impact of material production.

SHIFTING TO REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES, AND DECARBONISING THE AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY:

Traditional leather derived from cattle contributes to deforestation, land degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with livestock farming. By offering a cow-less leather alternative, Pact potentially lessens the reliance on animal agriculture, encouraging a shift towards more regenerative agricultural practices that emphasise ecosystem health, soil regeneration, and biodiversity preservation.

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Rhizocore

— using the power of fungi to accelerate the future of forestry.

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RHIZOCORE’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

FRESHWATER CHANGE P

N

BIOGEOCHEMICAL FLOWS

THE PROBLEM:

Trees are the cheapest and most scalable way to capture carbon. The commercial forestry and forest regeneration sectors plant billions of trees per year. However, without the right beneficial fungi, 15 to 80 percent of tree saplings die in adolescence or survive and suffer from slower growth rates.

SOLUTION:

Rhizocore screens, isolates, and produces locally-sourced mycorrhizal strains at scale. By deploying the right symbiotic fungi in the right ecosystem, Rhizocore equips land stewards with the tools to increase newly planted tree growth by 20+ percent in the first decade, decrease sapling mortality rates by 15+ percent, and enhance carbon sequestration above and below ground.

THE SCALE:

The commercial forestry and woodland regeneration sectors plant 25 billions of trees per year. The industry is expanding planting by an average of 614,000 ha (over 921 million trees) annually to meet growth projections.

In upcoming years, an additional 1.3 million ha (over 1.56 trillion trees) of woodland regeneration is pledged by governments.

THE OUTCOME:

Fungal diversity harnessed to solve environmental problems at scale.

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Rhizocore

FOUNDERS: Rhizocore was founded in 2021 by Toby Parkes and David Satori. The duo leverages Toby’s experience as a plant immunity researcher at the Millennium Seed Bank, the leading ex-situ plant conservation program, with David’s mycology background and experience as a conservation researcher at the Kew Botanic Gardens.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

RESTORING DEGRADED FORESTS AND CARBON SINKS:

By forming symbiotic relationships with native tree species, Rhizocore’s bespoke fungi pellets optimise tree growth, reduce mortality rates, and elevate carbon sequestration and biodiversity below ground.

ENABLING CONSERVATION USING SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY:

Rhizocore’s innovation lies in isolating and growing high-performance stains of mycorrhizal fungi, offering a cost-effective solution for a variety conservation efforts. By improving yields in the short term, Rhizocore lowers the cost of conservation projects, while ultimately fortifying their long term resilience.

UTILISATION OF SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY IN ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION:

Rhizocore’s fungal library allows for the optimisation of mycorrhizal fungi strains. Rhizocore’s strain library currently contains more than 80 unique isolates, which through selective screening and tailoring of pellets to match specific soil microbiomes, can unlock targeted solutions for ecosystem restoration that effectively contributes to mitigating climate change effects and revitalising degraded landscapes.

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Seqana

— using x-ray vision to measure soil carbon from space.

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SEQANA’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Soil is one of nature’s most powerful, cost-effective carbon capture technologies, capable of storing between 1.5 to 5.5 billion tons of carbon annually—more than the atmosphere and all of Earth’s plant biomass combined. Immaculate soil can store over four tons of carbon per acre, a process built up over millennia through photosynthesis. However, human activity, particularly agriculture, has released soil carbon faster than it can be replaced. Grasslands, which contain 20% of the world’s soil carbon, have suffered massive losses due to land-use conversions.

Since farming began 12,000 years ago, an estimated 133 gigatons of original soil carbon has been re-released into the atmosphere.

SOLUTION:

Seqana is developing an AI-based SaaS platform for monitoring and managing soil-based carbon removals, cutting costs by 10x and reducing certification time by 60x. Their product integrates satellite and environmental data with ML algorithms, trained and calibrated with regional ground-truthing data, to create the most cost-effective, scalable, and accurate soil-carbon quantification platform on the market. By monetizing regenerative farming and conservation practices that store reliable carbon rates, we can achieve global emission-reduction goals, nourish a growing population, and improve livelihoods for millions of growers.

THE SCALE:

The total potential supply of carbon credits in the agricultural sector in North America is 326 million tonnes (MT) of CO2 equivalent on a yearly basis, with potential demand by corporate buyers totaling to 190 MT of CO2 equivalent. The market is accordingly valued at $5.2 billion.

THE OUTCOME:

Seqana’s platform enables natural based solutions at scale by giving the world’s 500 million small-holder farmers a cost-effective way to access carbon and biodiversity markets.

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Seqana

FOUNDERS: Stefan Gönner, Jakob Levin and Julian Kremers met 10 years ago while studying Environmental and Resource Management together in Berlin.

After working together at earth observation startup LiveEO, they collectively recognised that the decreasing cost of launching satellites would continue the trend of higher quality, lower cost imagery that could disrupt existing solutions.

Together, they share an incredibly strong, thoughtful vision for the future of soil carbon.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

TRANSFORMED ECONOMIC INCENTIVES VALUING LIVING CAPITAL:

Seqana transforms economic incentives by monetizing regenerative farming and conservation practices through its SaaS platform. By assigning economic value to living capital, such as soil carbon, Seqana creates financial incentives for growers to adopt sustainable practices, aligning climate goals with economic interests.

RAPID DEPLOYMENT OF NATUREBASED SOLUTIONS:

Seqana achieves rapid deployment of nature-based solutions by integrating satellite-generated and environmental data with machine learning algorithms. This enables quick and accurate monitoring and management of soil-based carbon removals, providing a scalable and efficient approach to deploying nature-based carbon sequestration and storage.

SHIFTING TO REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES:

Seqana’s platform reduces costs by 10x and certification time by 60x, making regenerative farming economically viable. This in turn encourages widespread adoption of practices that contribute to carbon sequestration and biodiversity goals, achieving both economic benefits.

SUPPORTING GROWER LIVELIHOODS:

Seqana generates revenue streams for landowners and local communities, preventing land-use changes, preserving biodiversity, and supporting local ecosystem services.

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Stealth

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Meati

— using the power of nature to create healthy and regenerative alternatives to meat.

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MEATI’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

Radiative forcing

e operating sp Saf ac e

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

Consumers are increasingly concerned about the negative impacts of industrial animal agriculture on livestock, people, and the planet. Plantbased diets have become a top priority for Gen Z and Millennials, with 60% now vegan, vegetarian, or limiting meat consumption. To meet the rising demand for “meatless meat,” alternative proteins from plants, microorganisms, and even animal cells have become mainstream in restaurants, retailers, and households. Despite this, alternative proteins are projected to account for only 2% of the global animal protein market by 2025. Barriers to adoption include taste, cost, and lengthy ingredient lists, which dissuade consumers from choosing plant-based alternatives.

Additionally, many plant-based providers struggle to replicate whole-cut meats (e.g., sirloin steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts), which constitute the bulk of global meat consumption and nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumption.

SOLUTION:

Meati harnesses the natural genius of mycelium, the muscular root structure of fungal networks (mushrooms), to create whole-cut meats and some of the healthiest and most sustainable alternative meat products available today. By offering lower cost products that closely resemble traditional meats in taste and texture, Meati makes plant-based diets more appealing and accessible, encouraging more individuals to shift away from animal-based proteins.

THE SCALE:

Meati is upending the meat industry – one of the world’s largest addressable markets at over 1.4T US dollars.

THE OUTCOME:

Meati modernises ancient, natural processes to grow nutritious, delicious and regenerative foods at a global scale.

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Meati

FOUNDERS: Tyler Huggins and Justin Whiteley, the cofounders of Meati, met during their Ph.D. studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and aligned on the idea of using the efficiencies of biological systems and advances in material science to fundamentally transform the entire meat industry using mycelium. Their unique, earned insights had culminated in the invention of the production method that made it possible for Meat to produce whole-cut meats from mycelium.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

REDUCE LAND-USE CONVERSION FOR AGRICULTURE:

Meati’s use of mycelium for creating meat alternatives requires considerably less land compared to traditional animal agriculture. Unlike livestock farming, which demands vast land for grazing and feed crops, mycelium can be cultivated in controlled environments, reducing the need for extensive land use. Even other established alternative proteins rely on soy, corn, and other feedstocks that compete with agricultural land-use for food supply.

CATALYSE THE ADOPTION OF PLANT RICH DIETS THROUGH NUTRITIOUS, ACCESSIBLE, AND GOOD-TASTING ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS AND FOODS:

Meati’s focus on creating whole-cut meat alternatives addresses the taste and texture concerns commonly associated with plant-based proteins. By offering a solution to these barriers, Meati lowers the threshold even further to meet and increase demand for plant-based products.

DECARBONISING AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD SYSTEMS, BY REPLACING CARBON-INTENSIVE PROTEIN PRODUCTION METHODS WITH CARBON NEGATIVE PROCESSES:

Conventional animal-protein production is a significant contributor to carbon and methane emissions. Meati’s use of mycelium requires fewer resources, less water, and emits far fewer greenhouse gases compared to conventional animal agriculture. Additionally, mycelium has the potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere as it grows, contributing to a net reduction in carbon emissions compared to traditional meat production.

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Pachama

— the marketplace for high-quality, nature-based carbon removal.

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PACHAMA’S INWARD IMPACT OF THE PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.

CLIMATE CHANGE

CO2 concentration

BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY

Radiative forcing

Genetic

Functional

perating spa fe o ce Sa

LAND-SYSTEM CHANGE

THE PROBLEM:

The carbon removal industry, projected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2050, faces inefficiencies, bureaucracy, and opacity in existing carbon exchange systems. This hampers the financing and development of eligible projects, particularly in nature-based solutions, leaving buyers with limited data and project insights.

SOLUTION:

Pachama utilizes automated machine-learning models and remote-sensing data analysis to measure real-time forest carbon sequestration. With a marketplace connecting high-quality carbon credit supply and purchasers, Pachama has become a carbon project originator, generating revenue for growers while preserving land, biodiversity, and supporting local communities. They’ve facilitated investments in nature-based carbon credits for numerous Fortune 500 corporations.

THE SCALE:

Pachama’s efforts have funded projects safeguarding over 1 million hectares of land across 15 countries. Market intermediaries like Pachama could capture 9 to 14 percent of the estimated $40 billion to $140 billion Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) market by 2050. Forests alone hold the potential to contribute 23 percent of the climate mitigation required in the next decade as per the Paris Agreement, offering manifold societal and ecological benefits.

THE OUTCOME:

Pachama serves as a centralized platform for climate-related capital movement, channeling trillions of dollars toward the most regenerative, carbon-positive solutions globally.

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Pachama

FOUNDERS: Pachama was founded by Diego Saez Gil and Tomas Aftalion (CTO). After growing up in Tucuman, north of Argentina, surrounded by the vast Yunga forests, Diego went on to build Bluesmart and WeHostels. Together, the duo formulated a plan to turn natural capital into the most scalable, affordable, and synergistic solution to climate change.

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TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS:

RESTORING DEGRADED FORESTS AND CARBON SINKS:

Pachama’s machine-learning models and remote-sensing data analysis accurately measure real-time forest carbon sequestration, enabling the identification of areas for restoration and actively engaging in projects that restore and protect millions of hectares of land across various countries.

SCALING ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR CONSERVATION:

Monitoring, reporting and verification, alongside with demand creation, are critical enabling factors for conservation. By leveraging advanced sensing technologies, Pachama provides real-time data and insights into project progress, thereby enhancing transparency and efficiency to build a robust, liquid carbon credit market, and potentially form a basis for the emerging biodiversity market.

SCALING SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR A CARBON MARKET OF HIGHQUALITY CREDITS:

Pachama is scaling both the supply and demand sides of the carbon market for high-quality credits. Through their marketplace, they connect buyers with verified high-quality nature-based carbon credits while also assisting in originating and funding projects. This streamlined process not only increases the availability of these credits but also provides a platform for corporations to invest in credits which permanently store sequestered carbon.

DEPLOYING CARBON REMOVAL STRATEGIES BEYOND NET-ZERO:

Pachama goes beyond merely achieving net-zero carbon removal by deploying strategies that enhance ecosystem restoration, circular economies, and a net-positive paradigm change. By focusing on regenerative agriculture, soil carbon, and forestry projects, they can offer a significant portion of the climate mitigation needed for a 1.5 degree pathway, while also fostering societal and ecological co-benefits.

SUPPORTING GROWER LIVELIHOODS:

By becoming a carbon project originator, Pachama generates revenue streams for landowners and local communities, preventing land-use changes, preserving biodiversity, and supporting local ecosystem services..

SCALING UP FINANCE FOR CLIMATE AND NATURE:

Pachama is revolutionizing climate finance by leveraging advanced technology to streamline the measurement and trading of forest carbon credits, simultaneously supporting biodiversity, local communities, and large-scale land restoration projects globally.

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158–163

An unprecedented opportunity to adapt, transform, and thrive.

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REIMAGINING THE WORLD FROM THE ATOM UP

FIG. 5 STORM PATTERNS IN NATURE. POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOPS EMERGE, WITH REGENERATIVE PRACTICES REINFORCING EACH OTHER LIKE FLYWHEELS. PATTERNS IN NATURE ARE RESTORED, CREATING A SELFSUSTAINING CYCLE OF GROWTH AND RENEWAL, ACCELERATING PROGRESS AND OPPORTUNITY.

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This is our pivotal moment to enact profound transformation.

THE NAUTILUS SHELL IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH PATTERNS IN NATURE, FEATURING A LOGARITHMIC SPIRAL THAT MAXIMIZES SPACE EFFICIENCY AND STRENGTH. THIS PATTERN, SEEN IN GALAXIES, HURRICANES, AND PLANT ARRANGEMENTS, ILLUSTRATES NATURE’S TENDENCY TO USE EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FOR OPTIMAL RESOURCE UTILIZATION AND STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY.

ADAPT, TRANSFORM, AND THRIVE.

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AN UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY TO ADAPT, TRANSFORM, AND THRIVE In this era of transformative change, we stand at the crossroads of challenge and opportunity.

The daunting realities of climate change, agricultural strain, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification confront us, yet history reminds us of our resilience. Just as our ancestors overcame the upheavals of their time, we, too, embody the spirit to flourish amidst adversity. We stand today as living testaments to our innate ability to sow abundance in the face of profound trials—a deeply ingrained human trait that we will call upon again in this pivotal hour. This is our pivotal moment to not just endure but to enact profound transformation, leveraging the synergy of capital, technology, and human ingenuity.

At ReGen, we recognize that our planet’s restoration and our economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive ideals but attainable realities.

We envision a future where our oceans are vibrant, our soils are rich, and our atmosphere is clean—achievements made possible through our collective resolve and innovative practices.

This is a world where agriculture is a conduit for restoration, where ecosystems thrive under our careful stewardship, and where data and science guide our path to regeneration.

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OUR REGENERATIVE FUTURE Our Regenerative Future will be a testament to what happens when human creativity aligns with the rhythms of nature. We choose optimism and action, partnering with trailblazers who tackle the roots of our crises, fostering antifragile systems where positive impacts are symbiotic and expansive.

This is a future where the oceans, once acidic and barren, are now thriving with vitality — a testament to collective resolve for ocean deacidification. Through concerted efforts, our practices have fostered the resurgence of vibrant marine life, restoring the delicate equilibrium upon which our planet’s health depends.

ADAPT, TRANSFORM, AND THRIVE.

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Defining the fabric of a collective, abundant future.

The immense complexity of our soil is restored, and our atmosphere no longer bears the burden of two hundred years of relentless emissions. It’s a place where growers are innovators, employing revolutionary techniques revisiting the practices that have sustained our species for millenia — chemical-free crops, crop rotation, and holistic grazing. The earth replenishes beneath our feet, and life breathes back into depleted lands. Here, feeding the planet doesn’t necessitate expansion into untouched landscapes.

Wildlands are preserved, their intrinsic value recognized and uplifted by our human inventions.

These ecosystems thrive through revitalised natural cycles, embracing the rhythms of fire, carbon, water, and decomposition, now operating at optimal rates necessary for preservation and regeneration.

Thoughtful data collection serves as a watchful eye on the pulse of our planet, capturing intricate details, unveiling the ecosystem’s heartbeat, and monitoring shifts in climate patterns — a quiet sentinel safeguarding the delicate balance that is the Earth’s systems.

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Scientists harness innovation and imagination to craft a new dawn, yielding breakthroughs from microbial agents engineered to degrade waste and greenhouse gases, make food emerge from thin air, and feed our population. Here, possibilities redefine solutions that echo the movements of the natural world, crafting a world where humanity stands in harmony with nature.

It’s a world where step-change overlaps with tradition, where regeneration isn’t just a choice but a way of life — interconnected systems fostering resilient, flourishing generations for years to come. Our singular purpose is to seek partnerships with visionaries dedicated to reimagining this world with us. Investment in it is a profound act of faith in humanity’s ability to innovate and overcome.

This journey is our collective legacy—a convergence of ambition, technology, and spirit aimed at crafting a world where growth and sustainability are inseparable.

We embark on a path not just to withstand but to thrive amidst the challenges, nurturing a future where regeneration defines the essence of progress – defining the fabric of a collective, abundant future.

REGENERATION MANIFESTO VOL.01

SECTION FIVE

164–172 Bibliography 172 Thank you

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

OVERVIEW:

Meadows, Donella H. 2008. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Edited by Diana Wright. Illustrated edition. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.

Hawken, Paul. 2021. Regeneration : Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. New York ; Great Britain: Penguin Books.

“NASA Clocks July 2023 as Hottest Month on Record Ever Since 1880.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. Last modified August 14, 2023. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3279/nasaclocks-july-2023-as-hottest-month-on-record-ever-since-1880/.

Blunden J, Arndt DS, eds. State of the Climate in 2022. Bull Amer Meteor Soc. 2023;104(8):Si–S475. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0098.1. Available from: https://www.ametsoc. org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletins-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/stateof-the-climate/ Nkemelang T, New M, Zaroug M, et al. Impact of climate change on biodiversity and food security: a global perspective—a review article. Agric Food Secur. 2020;9:8. doi:10.1186/ s40066-020-00251-2. Available from: https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biomedcentral.com/ articles/10.1186/s40066-020-00251-2 Rockström, Johan, Xuemei Bai, and Bert deVries. “Global Sustainability: The Challenge Ahead.” Global Sustainability 1 (2018): e6. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2018.8.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE:

Andreessen, Marc. 2023. “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Andreessen Horowitz. October 16, 2023. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/.

Winton, Brett. 2019. “Disruptive Innovation: Why Now?.” ARK Invest. 2019. https://research. ark-invest.com/hubfs PWC. 2018. “PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Study: Sizing the Prize.” PwC. PwC. 2018. https:// www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/data-and-analytics/publications/artificial-intelligence-study.html.

Lässig, Ralph, Markus Lorenz, Emmanuel Sissimatos, Ina Wicker, and Tilman Buchner. 2021.

“Robotics Outlook 2030: How Intelligence and Mobility Will Shape the Future.” BCG Global.

June 17, 2021. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/how-intelligence-and-mobility-willshape-the-future-of-the-robotics-industry.

Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Edouard Mathieu (2023) - “What is Moore’s Law?” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/moores-law’ Theodore Paul Wright (1936) – Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. J. Aeronaut. Sci., 3 (4) (1936), pp. 122-128 Fracois Lafond, Aimee G. Bailey, Jan D. Bakker, Dylan Rebois, Rubina Zadourian, Patrick McSharry, and J. Doyne Farmer (2018) – How well do experience curves predict technological progress? A method for making distributional forecasts In Technological Forecasting and Social Change 128, pp 104-117, 2018.

Nagy B, Farmer JD, Bui QM, Trancik JE (2013) Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological Progress. PLoS ONE 8(2): e52669. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052669 Hannah Ritchie (2021) - “The price of batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/batteryprice-decline.’

Max Roser (2023) - “Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/technology-long-run’ Max Roser (2023) - “Learning curves: What does it mean for a technology to follow Wright’s Law?” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/ learning-curve’

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STATE OF THE MARKET:

“ $32bn and 30% Drop as Market Hits Pause in 2023.” 2024. CTVC by Sightline Climate.

January 5, 2024. https://www.ctvc.co/32bn-and-30-drop-as-market-hits-pause-in-2023/.

“Over $50 Billion Flow to Climate-Tech Startups in a Stormy Year.” 2024. BloombergNEF. February 13, 2024. https://about.bnef.com/blog/over-50-billion-flow-to-climate-tech-startupsin-a-stormy-year/.

Polovets, Leo. n.d. “Betting on Deep Tech.”https://www.codingvc.com/p/betting-on-deeptech.

IEA. 2023. “Overview and Key Findings – World Energy Investment 2023 – Analysis.” IEA. 2023. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2023/overview-and-key-findings.

AGRICULTURE AND LAND USE:

Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre. “When the World’s Population Took Off: The Springboard of the Neolithic Demographic Transition.” Science 333, no. 6042 (2011): 560-561. DOI: 10.1126/ science.1208880..

National Geographic Society. “The Development of Agriculture.” National Geographic.

Last updated January 5, 2024. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/developmentagriculture/.

Foley, Jonathan A., et al. “Solutions for a Cultivated Planet.” Nature 478 (2011): 337-342. DOI: 10.1038/nature10452.

Tilman, David, et al. “Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture.”

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 50 (2011): 20260-20264. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1116437108.

Lal, Rattan. “Soil Degradation as a Reason for Inadequate Human Nutrition.” Food Security 1, no. 1 (2009): 45-57. DOI: 10.1007/s12571-009-0009-z.

Project Drawdown. (2020). Regenerative Annual Cropping. Available online at: https://www. drawdown.org/solutions/regenerative-annual-cropping (accessed October 7, 2023).

LaCanne, Claire E., and Jonathan G. Lundgren. “Regenerative Agriculture: Merging Farming and Natural Resource Conservation Profitably.” PeerJ 6 (2018): e4428. DOI: 10.7717/ peerj.4428.

Rodale Institute. “REGENERATIVE ORGANIC AGRICULTURE AND THE SOIL CARBON SOLUTION.” 2020.

Newton, P. et al. “What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes.”Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 26 October 2020 Sec. Agroecology and Ecosystem Services Volume 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/ fsufs.2020.577723

FOOD SYSTEMS:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The State of Food and Agriculture 2019.” 2019. https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-agriculture/2019/en/.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Changing Consumer Preferences and Food Consumption Patterns.” In The State of Food and Agriculture 2019. 2019. https:// www.fao.org/3/cb8667en/online/src/html/changing-consumer-preferences-and-foodconsumption-patterns.html.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Food Losses and Waste: A Challenge to Sustainable Development.” August 31, 2015. https://www.fao.org/save-food/ news-and-multimedia/news/news-details/en/c/429182/.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

FOOD SYSTEMS:

World Resources Institute. “Reducing Food Loss and Waste.” https://www.wri.org/research/ reducing-food-loss-and-waste.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Global Food Losses and Food Waste - Extent, Causes and Prevention. 2011. https://www.fao.org/3/i3347e/i3347e.pdf.

Davis, K.F., Gephart, J.A., and Erisman, J.W., “Environmental Impact of Animal-Based Food Production and the Feasibility of a Shift Toward Sustainable Plant-Based Diets in the United States.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 4 (2020). https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.00115/full.

Springmann, Marco, et al. “Options for Keeping the Food System within Environmental Limits.”

Nature 562, no. 7728 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0594-0.

Willett, Walter, et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.” The Lancet 393, no. 10170 (2019): 447–492. https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4.

United Nations Environment Programme. “The Six-sector solution to the climate crisis” https:// www.unep.org/interactive/six-sector-solution-climate-change/agriculture-food/index.php.

Poore, J., and Nemecek, T. “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts through Producers and Consumers.” Science 360, no. 6392 (2018): 987–992. https://science.sciencemag.org/ content/360/6392/987 Tilman, D., and Clark, M. “Global Diets Link Environmental Sustainability and Human Health.”

Nature 515, no. 7528 (2014): 518–522. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13959.

Gerber, P.J., et al. “Tackling Climate Change through Livestock – A Global Assessment of Emissions and Mitigation Opportunities.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3437e.pdf.

Scarborough, Peter, et al. “Dietary Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Meat-Eaters, Fish-Eaters, Vegetarians and Vegans in the UK.” Climatic Change 125, no. 2 (2014): 179–192. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1.

Clark, M.A., Springmann, M., Hill, J., and Tilman, D. “Multiple Health and Environmental Impacts of Foods.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 46 (2019): 23357–23362. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116.

MATERIALS:

“Nature of Fashion Moving towards a Regenerative System II: The NATURE of FASHION.” n.d. https://biomimicry.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Nature-of-Fashion_2021.pdf.

“Plastic and Microplastics in Our Oceans – a Serious Environmental Threat.” 2017. UNEP. July 12, 2017. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic-and-microplastics-our-oceansserious-environmental-threat.

Gross L, Enck J. Confronting plastic pollution to protect environmental and public health.

PLoS Biol. 2021;19(3):e3001131. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001131 8.3 billion metric tons - UGA Today.” https://news.uga.edu/83-billion-metric-tons/ Lai J, Huang H, Lin M, Xu Y, Li X, Sun B. Enzyme catalyses ester bond synthesis and hydrolysis: The key step for sustainable usage of plastics. Front Microbiol. 2023;13. doi:10.3389/ fmicb.2022.1113705 Wilke, Carolyn. “Plastics are showing up in the world’s most remote places, including Mount Everest.” Science News, November 20, 2020. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ microplastics-mount-everest-snow-water-streams-climbers.

United Nations Environment Programme. “Plastic and Microplastics in our Oceans – A Serious Environmental Threat.” UNEP, May 19, 2016.

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MATERIALS:

“Key Actions to Fight Plastic Pollution | Nestlé.” n.d. Www.nestle.com.au. https://www.nestle. com.au/en/sustainability/waste-reduction/actions-plastic.

RTS. 2022. “Plastic Pollution in the Ocean - 2023 Facts and Statistics.” Recycle Track Systems.

December 5, 2022. https://www.rts.com/blog/plastic-pollution-in-the-ocean-2023-facts-andstatistics/.

NATURE:

Costanza R, de Groot R, Sutton P, et al. The value landscape in ecosystem services: Value, value wherefore art thou value? Sustainability. 2014;6(11):7896-7933. doi:10.3390/su6117896 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis.

World Resources Institute, 2005.

World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report 2020 - Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss.

WWF, 2020.

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES secretariat, 2019.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The State of the World’s Forests 2020. Forests, Biodiversity and People. FAO and UNEP, 2020.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. IPCC, 2019.

World Economic Forum. New Nature Economy Report II: The Future Of Nature And Business.

World Economic Forum, 2020.

United Nations. COP15 to the Convention on Biological Diversity Rebuilding depleted fish stocks: the good, the bad, and the ugly. ICES Journal of Marine Science. 2010;67(9):1830-1840.

The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

World Wildlife Fund. n.d. “Valuing Nature.” WWF. https://www.wwf.org.uk/what-we-do/ valuing-nature.

Machemer, Theresa. 2021. “Humans Have Altered 97 Percent of Earth’s Land through Habitat and Species Loss.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 20, 2021. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ smart-news/humans-have-altered-97-percent-earths-land-through-habitat-and-speciesloss-180977542/.

CARBON AND CLIMATE:

IPCC. 2021. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

IPCC. Núñez-López V, Brandt AR, Argonne National Laboratory. The Essential Role of Negative Emissions in Getting to Carbon Neutral. Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Published 2019.

Accessed March 24, 2024.

Tollefson, Jeff. “Can the World Kick Its Fossil-Fuel Addiction Fast Enough?” Nature 556 (2018): 422-425.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019.

Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

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CARBON AND CLIMATE:

Hawken, Paul, ed. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. New York: Penguin Books, 2017.

Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Our World in Data.

Last modified May 11, 2020. Our World in Data - CO2 Emissions.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2014.

Venditti, Bruno. “Visualizing Changes in CO2 Emissions Since 1900.” Visual Capitalist.

November 8, 2022. Visual Capitalist - CO2 Emissions.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2019. doi:10.17226/25259.

Jacobson, Mark Z., et al. “100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World.” Joule 1, no. 1 (2017): 108-121.

Smith, Pete, et al. “Carbon Capture and Storage: Realising the Potential?” Environmental Science & Technology 46, no. 8 (2012): 5688-5695.

Turner, Paul A., et al. “Green and Blue Hydrogen: The Demand and Supply Challenge of Decarbonizing the Gas Network.” Energy Policy 146 (2020): 111711.

Gies, Erica. “The Promise of Regenerative Ocean Farming.” Yale Environment 360. February 15, 2018. Yale E360.

Parag, Yael, and Benjamin K. Sovacool. “Electricity Market Design for the Prosumer Era.” Nature Energy 1, no. 4 (2016): 16032.

Churkina, Galina, et al. “Buildings as a Global Carbon Sink.” Nature Sustainability 3, no. 2 (2020): 269-276.

Markard, Jochen. “The Next Phase of the Energy Transition and Its Implications for Research and Policy.” Nature Energy 3, no. 8 (2018): 628-633.

Friedlingstein, Pierre, et al. “Global Carbon Budget 2020.” Earth System Science Data 12, no.

4 (2020): 3269-3340

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

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THANK YOU ReGeneration Manifesto was produced by ReGen Ventures, a team of like-minded investors and operators obsessed with the potential for regenerative technologies to enhance and enrich the lives of everyday people, everywhere. To our founders, (un)limited partners, co-investors and advisors – thank you for your partnership and for daring to reimagine the world from the atom up!

EDITORIAL DIRECTORS: Elena Klonsky Alexandra Carr WRITER/ EDITOR: Elena Klonsky PUBLICATION DESIGN: Lila Theodoros, Muse Muse CONTRIBUTORS: Dan Fitzgerald, Alexandra Carr, Parker Hughes, Tom McQuillen, Sebastian Schiavuzzi, Sacha Schmitz, Kenny Lee, Shannon Nangle, Yudi Ding, Anukool Lakhina, Alex Gagnon, Sandra Phillips, the team at FNDR, Arthur Klonsky, and Andrew Klonsky.

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A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

COVER FIGURE: TODAY WE NEED ABOUT 1.75 PLANETS TO PROVIDE THE RESOURCES FOR OUR CONSUMPTION AND ABSORB OUR WASTE. BY 2030, WE WILL NEED 2 PLANETS.