307 Kat Bruce - Going from putting insects in a food processor to raising $27M in 10 years and building the biggest eDNA biodiversity monitoring company

A conversation with Kat Bruce, founder of Nature Metrics , going from scooping insects with a small net and putting them in a food processor, to analysing the goo with an EDNA machine, to working with lots of large food corporations on measuring their biodiversity, food footprint, and impact.

How do you look back at raising 27 million dollars and spending 10 years building the biggest biodiversity measurement company using eDNA in a time where very few people care at all about biodiversity, let alone invest in measuring it. How do we analyse water at a catchment area to see what lives in that area? How about soil measurements for DNA at scale, and what about air sniffing and analysing? And why are the corporations only coming in in the last few years? Where are people moving, and what is still missing?

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

How do you look back at raising 27 million dollars and 10 years of building the biggest biodiversity measurement company using eDNA environmental DNA in the world, in a time where still very few people cared at all about biodiversity, let alone invest in it, let alone invest in measuring it? How do you analyze water in a catchment area at scale to see what lives inside that area? And what about soil measurements and air sniffing to figure out what lives in the area and what has changed, going from scooping insects with a small net and putting them into a food processor to analyze the goo with an eDNA machine, to working with a lot of the largest food corporates in the world to measure their biodiversity footprint and impact? And why are the corporates coming into the game only in the last few years? What are people moving into and what is still missing?

Speaker 1: 1:09

This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast. Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume, and it's time that we, as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:54

If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg. That is gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg. That is gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg or find the link below Welcome to another episode today with the founder of Nature Metrics transforming how you measure and report nature with scalable nature intelligence biodiversity metrics powered by eDNA. Welcome, kate.

Speaker 2: 2:33

Hi, thanks very much for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:35

And we've had a colleague of yours two years ago. I can't believe it's two years. I already said it in the pre-interview, it felt like almost yesterday, but let's say, beginning of 2022. And so much has happened in the biodiversity space, obviously, since then. So I'm really looking forward to unpack that and also unpack your story into this space Obviously co-founding of founding one of the main companies in this realm of biodiversity measurements, which didn't really exist 10 years ago or even five. But I would love to start with a personal question we always like to start with is how do you end up measuring biodiversity Most of your or maybe you're not measuring it actively now, but let's say, thinking about and acting and doing biodiversity measurement most of your awake hours? Like, how do you roll into that?

Speaker 2: 3:22

Quite by accident really, I always sort of talk about myself as a bit of an accidental entrepreneur in the nature space. Um, I was a biodiversity scientist by background and I had this great life plan which involved, uh, doing some studies in sort of biodiversity and wildlife as a route to spending my life running around the Amazon, rainforest and other places like that, with binoculars, um doing conservation work, um.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I'm looking behind you out of the window and and I can see that that didn't happen. Yet let's say like how did that work out?

Speaker 2: 3:56

yeah so. So um, a few left, few left turns. So I was doing a PhD in tropical ecology. During that PhD, we started using DNA sequencing tools. So this was back in gosh 2012 or so and we started using high throughput DNA sequencing tools, which were called next generation sequencing, which is now very much past generations everything's moved on a lot since then but essentially to take sort of really complex samples, so, in the first instance, insects, which you can catch in very large numbers, but then actually finding the expertise to identify all of those different species. It's really hard and takes a very long time, and so what we were doing was taking samples that other people had caught and identified some of, and then, in the first instance, literally sticking them in food blenders and turning them into soups. So from each trap sample, you would get a soup of mixed up sort of you know species, and then you can sequence each soup and get a sort of full read out of the, the diversity contained within it and what we saw so we started doing.

Speaker 1: 5:04

that was so literally you could put a bit of the goo the soup into a DNA sequencing machine and then get the different species in one readout, basically.

Speaker 2: 5:15

Yeah, exactly, it sounds like life-changing for research. It's completely, completely revolutionary for research. So sort of previously, the sequencing technology that had been used you could take one individual specimen and you could get one sequence out of the end of the sequencer. The next generation or high throughput sequences allow you to have many different species and they spit out at the time you know hundreds of thousands of DNA sequences. Now we're up to millions or even billions of sequences that come out of these machines. So that just allows you to look at the full complexity of a biological sample.

Speaker 2: 5:55

And it had been used for a little while in the microbial world, actually, because one of the only ways that you could get an idea of microbial diversity, because a lot of, you know, a lot of microbial species can't be cultured and so there was just almost no way of measuring them. So we sort of took that and started applying it to these larger organisms, so to particularly insects. And the nice thing about insects is that they're in pretty high abundance, they're quite high diversity, they're really good sort of barometers of environmental change, because the communities change quite quickly in response to disturbance. So what this allowed us to do is to create data sets that you know, gosh, we could create data sets within a few weeks that had taken years to generate using conventional taxonomy.

Speaker 1: 6:42

And how did that feel, to be sort of at that tipping point when a new tool came around and almost senses from somebody from the outside feels like magic. But you're lucky enough to be there when that happens. Not that you invented a tool or you suddenly took from the microbial world to the insect world and suddenly 10x, 100x, 1000x things were possible. Yeah, like, how was that?

Speaker 2: 7:08

amazing. I mean it was, it was a. It was really exciting, uh. But what? For me, the most exciting thing has always been to see the patterns that come out of data and to see that those patterns reflect what we expect on the ground and are sort of ecologically meaningful.

Speaker 2: 7:29

So what we ended up doing in my PhD was taking this sort of technology and applying it in a few different contexts. So we did some work in forestry in a forestry context, looking at different sort of management strategies for planting forestry units. We did some work in soils in different agricultural schemes and different sorts of agri-environment programs, and you could see differences in the communities between soils from organic farms, soils from sort of conventional or ELS farms and all of these, you know. And all of these had a lot more statistical power because there was so much more data flowing into it. So you know, biodiversity is like it's your classic big data problem, right, it is huge and interconnected and messy and noisy, but within that noise there are really predictable signals that are sort of showing you when things are getting better or worse or changing. And actually we have no issue in dealing with that kind of data. We use AI, machine learning, all those sorts of tools. But what we hadn't been able to do before this technology came along is take nature and turn it into data at scales that were big enough to then be able to bring that sort of really powerful suite of analytical tools to understand it. So for me that's been like the core of the revolution that we were at the beginning of.

Speaker 2: 8:48

And then I started reading, you know, as I was writing up the PhD, started reading about how environmental management was done at the moment and where data came from and sort of you know the extent to which there was evidence-based decision making. I was pretty horrified, I mean that I mean people talk about adaptive management as being the gold standard, where you sort of monitor and assess what's happening and treat it as a hypothesis and then adapt what you're doing based on the data that you get. But that just really wasn't possible anywhere other than in sort of a few research studies. So I started Notometrics, really out of a desire to go to take these tools and make them available and accessible to the people who were sort of at the front line of that environmental management and conservation, because I thought, you know, these kids sit around in the academic literature for 15 years before people sort of start taking it out there.

Speaker 2: 9:41

And there's a big you know, there is a big gap between doing something in a research setting, in a research context, and doing it in a sort of scalable, high throughput, high quality, replicable sort of environment. So, yeah, we started Nature Metrics to do that and I went out to investors and said, hey, I'm going to revolutionize the scale at which we can monitor and measure biodiversity. This was in 2015. And like and said hey, I'm going to revolutionize the scale at which we can monitor and measure biodiversity. This was in 2015. And, like you said, there just wasn't any recognized sort of demand for that from the investment community. So they looked at me a bit strangely and said who on earth is going to pay to know about biodiversity? It's not really important.

Speaker 1: 10:17

How do you feel your slide about the market and traction and things like that where there's no market and no traction?

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah, exactly so, you know, but actually there wasn't any. You know there was a lot that wasn't obvious but there were. You know there was some regulated monitoring that was needed to be done by sort of governments. There were conservation organizations that needed to know whether things were working or not. And then there were businesses that were doing environmental impact assessments and actually did have, you know, were spending money on biodiversity assessments but getting very little usable data for it. So I was able to sort of convince people that there was enough of a market to get started. And then, yeah, it's just, you know, like you said, over the last few years really sort of since about 2021, you know the rate at which biodiversity has shot up the agenda. To really sit not just alongside climate change but actually embedded within the climate agenda is a really core part of that has just been amazing to be part of.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, I think that the biodiversity I mean, in our circles at least you see the recognition of the, the carbon tunnel vision, and unless you also tackle biodiversity, like if you tackle biodiversity, well, mostly carbon is part of that and but that doesn't mean necessarily the other way around. If you tackle carbon with a super monoculture, eucalyptus plantation somewhere nothing against eucalyptus in its right context and but you definitely don't serve biodiversity. And so that recognition of that tension, like if you tackle biodiversity and or even water, well, you probably also fix a big issue in the the carbon side of land use. But the other way around is not necessarily true. And then we see people coming around to that.

Speaker 1: 11:59

But I want to go one step back, like when, like still, what made you decide to start a company? Like it's not the easiest journey. Definitely in academia it's also not easy, but it's very different in terms of pace. What you already said you don't have to go out and raise money from investors. Of course you have to raise funding for, for research, but maybe you would have spent more time in the amazon up till now and not managing quite a significant company with a significant fundraising and, of course, a lot of obligations. Like, what triggered that like as a logical next step is, I'm going to start a biodiversity measuring company.

Speaker 2: 13:06

I think a few things.

Speaker 2: 13:07

I think I was by the time I got halfway through my PhD, I was pretty clear that I didn't want to be an academic um.

Speaker 2: 13:13

I think that you know there's a there's a big gap between doing academic research and really sort of having impact um in in the real world, um, and the pace is.

Speaker 2: 13:25

The pace is pretty slow. It takes a long time for for things to happen, often not always um, but but often um. At the same time I'd been uh, taking, taking on and transforming the university rowing club and I think that gave me a sense of you know the uh, the satisfaction and putting together a team with a particular sort of mission and figuring out how you you know how you get all the resources you need and how you sort of take people on a journey with you to sort of achieve particular things. And I really loved that and that gave me a sense that perhaps the, perhaps the business world, was a little bit more more like that than the academic world. You know, if I'd known and maybe your first time I'm trying to say this, but if I'd known how hard it was to sort of start and scale a company, and particularly a science-based company gosh, I probably would never have dared to try, so I think ignorance was on my side there.

Speaker 2: 14:26

yeah, and you know, I genuinely felt like these were tools that needed to be out there, that we needed to be able to understand what works in terms of making efficient use of what is, you know, still pretty limited capital that goes into this space. You know, it's very, very easy to waste a lot of time and a lot of money and not really see anything for it. So I wanted to, I wanted to make adaptive management something that was really possible to do and possible to sort of normalize at large scales.

Speaker 1: 15:15

And we'll kind of get back to the adaptive management. What would be your advice to other people wanting to, let's say, bridge the gap between science and entrepreneurship? Now, looking back on almost 10 years of journey, but like, don't do it, or do it in a different way, or read I mean, get prepared. What would be your main? What's your main lesson learned or your main advice? If you'd be I don't know in front of a room of people in the science world that are frustrated with the lack of progress or speed or impact, maybe as well, on, let's say, a lot of hectares, a lot of acreage or a lot of place, what would be your main message?

Speaker 2: 15:55

I think you know, make sure you're up for it because it's a tough. It is a tough journey but it's also incredibly exciting. And I think you know when I started I was very aware of, because I had to spend some time working in a startup accelerator to try and sort of figure out how on earth you started these business things, um and um.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I was very aware that you say, like the business, these business things, this thing is that people build I've done nothing.

Speaker 2: 16:30

I'd run around jungles and I'd done PhDs. I'd never even been employed in a business. So you know, I really was coming at it very, very green. So I knew the stats about most of these things fail. When I told the people in the startup world that I was going to start a business that involves squishing up insects, they were also not totally convinced that I was going to be successful. And so I sort of thought, well, what have I? You know, what have I got to lose? Like, try it, try it. And in a way, actually it was as things as it started working.

Speaker 2: 17:02

And then the sort of you know, the stakes become higher and higher and suddenly you've got investors and employees and clients and all of these people who sort of have believed in what you've said you, you can do, and there's the pressure to really sort of deliver and to be able to run the company effectively. That that, for me, was the hard bit, actually not the not sort of getting started. And then I realized quite quickly that, you know, I didn't have that experience to be able to run the company. So, you know, I've had, we've had a, we've had a separate ceo, um, who came in and for the first time in 2020 and for me that was the biggest relief to be able to sort of hand that sort of actual running of the company over to somebody who knew how to do that bit um and sort of let me focus on the bits that that I am good at which is the the science side of things um, so, yeah, make sure you're up for it.

Speaker 2: 17:54

And the other thing that I think is key is that you know there are a lot of different um, there's a lot of different models to starting and um capitalizing a company, um, and the you know the we've gone down, which is the sort of you know the route that we've gone down, which is a sort of you know business angels and then VC funding is an effective way to grow quickly. But you know, you need to know, you need to know what it is that you're getting into, because there's trade offs with different types of growth models and each one of them has its you know its advantages and disadvantages, and each one of them has its advantages and disadvantages. So it's not to say don't go down one route or another, but just be really clear what it is that you're sort of getting signed up to.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Yeah, especially taking a certain type of funding who requires a certain type of growth and speed after that, and they need to be up for up for that. One needs to be possible. But also, like, what kind of tension does it create in a company? We've all seen the examples of grow too fast and and not ready for that, etc. Etc. That funding, to a certain extent um created, or at least demanded, because they have their, their terms, they have the, especially the timeframes in the what some VCs operated not all, we're not bashing you, but definitely it is a certain path that you have to like consciously choose and not complain after.

Speaker 1: 19:22

But you have to consciously choose and there are other paths that you can choose as well, and so you. It's not the only like. There are many different shades of investment available now these days, so make sure you choose very well what kind of outside capital you take yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 19:37

And then you know, even within, you know, even within a particular path, there's a lot of choices to make and you know we've been really lucky. We've had amazing investors sort of all the way through and they're investing all of our. All of our investors are impact investors, um sort of with a remit around sort of climate in particular, and increasingly now there are investors that are also got biodiversity in their scope specifically, and so you know they do understand the world that you're working in. But there are still, obviously, the expectations in terms of growth.

Speaker 1: 20:10

No, absolutely. And then, on the adaptive side, why is it so important to move to a model where adaptation based on real data? I think that's the crux here. That wasn't possible before. Why is that so fundamental in, let's say, land management and biodiversity?

Speaker 2: 20:29

Well, we're in a situation at the moment for biodiversity and nature which is really not a good one. You know, everything's in pretty steep decline, and and that is not just you know, it's not just losing things that are nice to have, but it's losing, or standing the risk of losing, um, all of the services that nature provides to us. That is everything from, you know, cleaning water, nutrient cycling, being able to grow crops in healthy soils. You know, maintaining trillions of dollars of the economy anything that's got natural resources at the base of a value chain or supply chain is fundamentally reliant on nature and on nature being in such a state that it's functioning and delivering those core services that we rely on. So I think what we've seen over the last few years is a real sort of awakening of this concept that, um, yeah, biodiversity is is absolutely critical and fundamental to you know, humanity really, um so we, and we know that it's in free falls and we know we have to turn it around, um, if we want to sort of maintain the, the um, the life that we have. Um. So the global biodiversity framework that was launched in montreal, um at the end of 2022, set us the global challenge of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by well halting by 2030 and reversing by 2050 um. And that means really, you know, completely reimagining our relationship with nature and the natural world, um, and it means collaborating across every type of organization and every type of stakeholder in a way that we haven't really done before. So we have some huge challenges ahead of us.

Speaker 2: 22:44

We do know that it's absolutely possible to turn things around. You know there are tens of thousands, probably more, people all over the world who you know know ecology and know how to do restoration, know how to work with the land, and we need to create evidence bases for those. We need to be able to scale those solutions up. We need to make sure that you know biodiversity doesn't just become the latest bandwagon that everybody's sort of jumping on rhetorically but actually you know if companies are making claims, for example, about regenerative agriculture or being nature positive, that that is really real and that that is translating into actual change on the ground. And that's where the sort of you know the data is critical in terms of being able to really sort of bring accountability into this space and achieve the outcomes that we need to.

Speaker 1: 24:22

And do you see that sense of urgency, even more so than I think we see with carbon? Like if you look at the data on biodiversity and it's sort of the building blocks of what we are building this sense, that sense of urgency that's not the right sentence, but starting to build over the last years, like this is like you cannot take away too many of the Yenga blocks. At some point it will fall and and we see that in certain places I'm not sure if the general public, etc. But maybe your investors do and and your clients do as well like this is an existential threat. This is not like oh yeah, we should have a nice uh stamp of bees on our package of biscuits. Now, this is a this, otherwise we don't have the grain to buy to make the biscuits anymore, or for a price that's completely unaffordable and a volatility that's out of this world. Do you see that urgency? If so, and since when? If you see that urgency coming into discussions?

Speaker 2: 25:18

Yeah, I think, yes, starting to, and since quite recently. So you know, know, I think since there was a big, a big moment really in uh, cop 26 in glasgow in 2021, um, where it really nature got put at the heart of the climate agenda and it was sort of recognized that about 30 percent of the solution to sort of reaching the paris goals is going to have to come from nature and nature-based solutions. And that means, therefore, to meet climate goals, we're going to have to invest in protecting and restoring nature. And then, following on from that, a lot of work around from the finance industry sort of really starting to show that if you don't account for natural capital, then actually, you know, gdp and all of our models of economic growth don't really work. That then, you know, translated into a lot of talk about biodiversity in areas where biodiversity hadn't been talked about before.

Speaker 2: 26:22

So you started to see banks bringing in ecologists and biodiversity specialists to sort of take a take a look at this from the perspective, a lot of reports being published. And then we've had the tnfd the task force for nature related financial disclosures, um, which you know is is again. So we try to take what was done for carbon with the tcfd, the task force for climate related financial disclosures, and to translate that into nature and basically create a framework for businesses to be able to report and disclose on their impacts on nature. That's also embedded within the global biodiversity framework. So one of the targets that came out from montreal is that all big businesses will be required to report their impacts on nature. So you know, this is all quite recent for businesses, but the first thing that they've had to do is really do a bit of a biodiversity sort of risk assessment and go well, where are our touch points actually as a business, like what could our impacts be and where would those be?

Speaker 1: 27:24

And there are certain sectors in particular in particular those that have a reliance on a sort of agricultural supply chain that took a look under the hood and went oh my goodness, you know this is because until now it was mostly mining, I think, like in the, because they had sort of the, the legal requirement to restore or to at least like if they opened a mine somewhere where it was relatively regulated. Of course they needed to do base assessment, there was money there, but it was the only sector which is booming. Of course, for a lot of critical minerals and elements we need for the energy transition, but still it's a very small percentage, like it's a very small hectare or acreage, but if you start looking at the agriculture, space, land use, then it explodes very quickly. So what kind of sector started knocking on your door and saying we never imagined we had a biodiversity challenge, but we do?

Speaker 2: 28:18

What were the ones that felt it the earliest or noticed it the quickest? Let's say, yeah, I think food and fashion sort of food and drinks and fashion are some of the first that have really sort of you know, seem to be taking this seriously, um, and part of the reason they're taking it seriously is, you know, partly because they they do have big impacts, very large scale, um, sort of diffuse impacts across large amounts of of the earth, um, and partly because you know it really, this really is, um, you know, operational risk to the sustainability of their businesses and their ability to procure the materials and the natural resources that they need. And you know, we see more and more, as we see, sort of extreme weather events around the world. We're seeing that impacting supply chains. You know there's big issues with chocolate at the moment because of, you know, unusual weather systems in West Africa, and so that makes it very real for these companies.

Speaker 2: 29:13

I think that's particularly in terms of the food and drink. I think then there's the sort of high-end fashion who have been, in many ways, actually some of the leading organizations in the regenerative agriculture space and for them there's also an aspect of, you know, the sort of brand responsibility, recognizing the impacts and sort of. You know there's quite a lot of brand risk to getting that wrong, and so quite a few of them have been at the leading edge of sort of pushing for new solutions.

Speaker 1: 29:48

um, and then and then on the ground yeah, those are the main one brand discussions, obviously, but examples you've worked on um on the ground in terms of because we still have this narrative, often very strong narrative, of we need to separate nature and production and and then if we just intensify the production with all technology means possible and we sort of separate nature and production and and then if we just intensify the production with all technology means possible and we sort of keep nature fenced off and and let it like it, she do do whatever it wants, like that sparing versus identification is still very, very strong.

Speaker 1: 30:19

We see, in the region space it's often or it seems to be possible to integrate and to have a lot more biodiversity on productive land, but that sort of notion seems it's very difficult to get to wrap our heads around. What have you seen on the ground in that, like biodiversity, fencing it off, splitting it, etc. Etc. Or um, this bringing biodiversity back on land that is also productive and gets fibers and food and oils and the things we we need and what? What have you encountered in that narrative or in those narratives?

Speaker 2: 30:49

Yeah, I think, as you say, that has become a much more interesting and nuanced conversation than it was when I was doing my PhD, when it was very much sort of you know, are you in the sharing camp or the sparing camp? And you know it's sort of one or the other. The reality is that we need a mixture of both things. There are certainly some parts of land which are not great for producing food but are great for bringing back nature. And, if you can, you know this is all about systems change, right? So it's not just about what you're doing on the ground, but it's also about what are the mechanisms for being able to make that different decision.

Speaker 2: 31:29

One of you know the land sparing piece and turning certain areas over to real restoration to bring back natural habitats, and then, at the same time, you know there's so much evidence building that just changing the way that we farm so that we use natural processes has so much opportunity for win-win.

Speaker 2: 32:07

This is not a trade-off where you have to sort of at least in the medium to long term accept sort of lower yields as a result of investing in sort of more regenerative farming techniques.

Speaker 2: 32:20

We can do both things and build resilience into the system. So actually you're much more able to withstand, you know, climatic shocks or things that we're increasingly likely to see over the next years. So you know, a lot of some of the work that we've been doing has been looking at the biodiversity benefits of things like using kelp biostimulant as a replacement for fertilizer, and there you know, they're seeing great differences in the actual crop and they seem to be sort of bigger and stronger and more productive. And you know, still analyzing the data at the moment, but you know, potentially with biodiversity benefits as well, and we've been on that project, we've been measuring the biodiversity in the kelp forests themselves as well to actually be able to show that's using water samples rather than soil samples. But so you can create this whole story that's backed up by evidence, where you've got a product which itself is improving biodiversity rather than degrading it through its production in the oceans.

Speaker 1: 33:26

Which fertilizer does. Let's not forget where fossil fuel-based fertilizer comes from. I don't think anybody has ever done a biodiversity study of these mines or the natural gas places where the gas comes from, or the fossil fuel gas I should stop saying natural gas. But if you take that picture, that's on the kelp side where we're diving deeper into the the region aqua aquaculture world as we speak. Not sure when this is going to be out and if we already kicked off the the the ocean series of the region aquaculture series, but it's definitely something we've been neglecting, honestly, on the podcast mostly but the potential there for regeneration is just enormous because it's so much faster, so much more land land or more surface, let's say and you're more easily working in 3D at different levels, which makes it just fascinating. So you're looking and at the kelp forest where you're harvesting and, of course, not trying to over-harvest, and on the land itself. Really interesting.

Speaker 2: 34:23

Yeah, yeah. So you know there are so many. I think one of the things that I'm seeing more and more at the moment is we have these opportunities for win-wins and at the moment, the sort of system that we're in and the choices that we keep being sort of pushed to make push us towards lose-losers, and it is absolutely possible to change those around, but it's got to be.

Speaker 1: 34:47

you know, it's a whole systems um approach that's needed yeah, and I think there are a lot of quick wins, like I think, if we look in the mirror, honestly, of how incredibly destructive the food system and land use system in general, if we look at oils, seed oils, and if we look at at fashion of course as well, like how incredibly destructive it is.

Speaker 1: 35:09

There's so much low-hanging fruit that in the next five to ten years, like can, without any new technology or without any major new things, like a lot of has to be implemented at scale. Um, but we we do know how to make compost at scale of a compost extract and and we do know how to do quite a few things. Maybe planting a kelp forest at scale is more known in in certain parts in asia, not so much in europe yet but we can export that. That's not impossible. Like a lot of these tools are there, but they're really waiting for entrepreneurs to implement them on tens of thousands of hectares instead of a few and then, of course, monitor that as well and do that, like in terms of clients and people you work with. Has that surprised you that the food and egg space, and maybe the fashion space as well, like the land, like the agriculture space, has been interested in this or jumping on this relatively recently.

Speaker 2: 36:04

I think it makes sense that they're the ones that are jumping on this. I think all of the you know, when you look across the sectors, in terms of the scale of the impacts on nature and the dependencies on nature, that's really the center of the Venn diagram. So I think you know it is that there's a lot of very good reasons why that's happening. Um, there's a lot of complexities to to operationalizing it, um, and there's, you know, the there's. The danger is that we spend a long time doing very small sort of scientific research studies before starting to figure out how we actually operationalize and scale these things, um, but um, yeah, you know, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's a really good thing that these sectors are getting in there and talking on scale, like how do you get this to to like a landscape scale?

Speaker 1: 37:02

how do you monitor and adapt and then monitor again, or continues to monitor and adapt again. This is on a much bigger scale, because I'm imagining you cannot catch the insects and blend them in a in a blender, on, uh, on a few thousand or more hectares, like how do you make sure, okay, this, this landscape or this my biome is moving in a direction, but these are points where interference is needed. And how do you do that?

Speaker 2: 37:33

Yeah, so that's one of the big things that we've been working on over the last couple of years really, because, particularly when you go from, it's very different from an implementation perspective, working across the vast landscapes that we're looking at with agriculture compared with, for example, a mining site which has a very clear, very high impact sort of footprint. So actually the first thing to say is you know, I started with the insects. Most of the work we do still do some work on insects. Most of what we do is working either with water samples or with soil samples, and in the agriculture space, it's primarily the soil samples. That that we're talking about, um.

Speaker 2: 38:12

So we're, you know that, and that gives us really a focus on on soil health, um and and the functioning of the soil ecosystem, which is what lies at the, you know, really at the basis of producing food effectively, and so we obviously you can't monitor at the same density, the economics of it don't work, nor does the practicality. But what you can start doing, and what we're starting to do at the moment, is to understand what the sort of biodiversity or biological signature of a healthy, functioning soil looks like and then be able to sort of contextualize individual samples against that background knowledge. So you can sort of take a much smaller number of samples not necessarily everywhere, it might just be in a sort of small proportion of sites each year and say you know where do these sit on the scale from completely degraded to sort of healthy and functioning, and over time are they going up. So we're making a lot more use of background data, of machine learning, of modeling, to be able to do that learning of modeling, to be able to do that Exactly.

Speaker 2: 39:30

And then there are always contexts where you need to do more intensive monitoring, for example where you're trying to provide the evidence base for a particular type of intervention. So if you can do that, and you do that really as a sort of very detailed scientific study, that then gives you the evidence to be able to have a viable assumption that if you implement this approach you can expect to have this kind of outcome. And then you would have a sort of you know a lower level sort of verification process to make sure where that's being implemented. That does seem to be sort of delivering the expected outcomes, and you can recalibrate models as you go.

Speaker 1: 40:04

Yeah, and I remember talking two years ago on the water side as well, like how nice it is or how interesting, like in a watershed or in a national park, et cetera, like if you end up measuring the DNA, the eDNA, in water, you sort of know what has happened upstream, and not exactly where, obviously, isn't it. You know exactly where the hippo did something, et cetera. I a hippo, I think a hippo story, um. But also in watershed. We see a lot of discussion now of what does regeneration mean on a watershed level, not only in the, the quantity of water, because we're dealing with a lot of floods and or droughts, um but also in the quality, of course, like are you doing work there as well? Because it seems like, if the, let's say, the lowest point in the on the farm, but also the lowest point in a watershed, if there the water is improving significantly, something is going well upstream. Is that a right, like a way of thinking on on a watershed restoration? Is that an interesting data point or is that, way to say, much simplified?

Speaker 2: 41:05

no, that's, that's absolutely um, very, very and very, very possible with these sorts of tools. So you know, I think with the eDNA tools in general, there's two ways in which it's really transformative in terms of the scale at which we can really sort of take account for biodiversity. One is that the samples are very easy to collect, so they can be collected by the landowner, the farmer, whoever's there. And the second is that within each sample you've got DNA from right across the tree of life, so you can look at biodiversity through multiple different lenses, so from an individual set of samples so take water samples, for example you might look at the biodiversity from the perspective of the fish, the vertebrates, the wildlife, the things that sort of fit with what we know about nature and ecology and conservation, etc. And there are all the things we want to bring back.

Speaker 1: 41:55

I hear an or coming, or you could look at.

Speaker 2: 41:58

Or end, or end End.

Speaker 2: 42:00

End, you can also look at the smaller, less sort of charismatic components of the biodiversity, which are the invertebrates, the bacteria, the fungi, the algae, all of those sorts of things which are really much more intimately linked to the functioning and the health of the ecosystem itself and things like pollution.

Speaker 2: 42:29

And they hold because they're because they tend to be groups that are incredibly diverse they hold a huge amount of statistical power to be able to create models and to be able to show change.

Speaker 2: 42:41

And so often, you know, the ability to look at biodiversity through those two different lenses at once allows us to get a really holistic picture of what's going on with biodiversity.

Speaker 2: 42:50

So, absolutely, you know, within the microbial and invertebrate communities in particular is where you really see the impacts of different sorts of chemical pollutions, runoff, etc. And be able to look at changes in water quality. You can also zero in on particular communities, particularly of bacteria that are linked to particular sources. So, whether that's you know, you can see the component of the bacterial community that's linked to sewage human sewage, for example or to different types of livestock, as well as being able to see the effects of the chemical pollutants. So I think these sorts of things are particularly powerful when you're looking at the sort of integrated catchment management systems where you've got multiple stakeholders within a catchment and you might be asking, you know, farmers at one end to change practices in order to improve water quality, which is important to people further downstream, but then sort of bringing back again, bringing in payments for ecosystem services, et cetera, but all of those you need to have something that you can attach to in terms of real data to show what's happening.

Speaker 1: 43:57

It sounds like WWF needs to change their icon of the panda into something way smaller, and what you mentioned in the beginning as well is that the speed of these groups of organisms icon of the panda into something way smaller. Um, and what you mentioned beginning as well is like that the speed of these groups of um organisms respond to change is is much bigger than the very charismatic ones we, we, we track, etc. And the sheer size, the sheer diversity and sheer number makes it much more, much more relevant. And and then I remember there was, like you said, soil, water and and I remember from the conversation as well, that you were doing, starting to do some tests with air sampling and air sniffing. I think I called it sniffing towers or something in the interview.

Speaker 1: 44:34

But anyway, what what up? What is up with air, and is that still relevant or not yet relevant?

Speaker 2: 44:40

interesting, exciting yeah, air is. Air is very exciting, um, and there's a lot, of, a lot of work going on um to to sort of bring that um into the suite of tools. Um, and then I think about air is you've really got it everywhere. So, you know, water is great where you have water and where you're interested in in water, soil in an agricultural sense, you know, there's usually soil, but air is everywhere, including in, you know, built and urban environments.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Um, and this is one that you know I was very skeptical about whether it would ever work. Um, and then a couple of years ago, there were two independent groups of researchers, um who independently went and did basically the same study and published within a couple of weeks of each other where they'd gone to zoos, because, of course, in zoos you know what animals are where and you can sort of see what, see what you detect. Um and um, they'd, yeah, just pumped air through some pretty simple filters and analyzed it and found not only the zoo animals but a whole set of local wildlife. Um, and and it really, you know it works better than it works better than I'd ever imagined. Um.

Speaker 2: 45:48

We've got some amazing results from some sort of recent um r&d projects with some clients, um and and looking again, looking at everything from um the mammals and vertebrate fauna all the way through, like insects, fungi, pollen you can get on in the air, of course. So, yeah, there's a lot of potential for that. Again, you know, every method and every application has its own sets of limitations and biases. So with air, you know we don't know much about what affects the distribution of DNA in air, how the weather affects it, how far it moves, how you can interpret it spatially, etc. So we have to be quite careful with those sorts of things in terms of not overpromising, but as a way to get an idea of what's going on with local biodiversity. Yeah, it looks like it's really exciting potential.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yeah, fascinating the potential there there and probably we're going to discover a lot of um unhealthy air practices. Let's say that we're currently okay with and, and somehow I think briefly around covid we started care about inside air, for example, and then we forgot about it again, like who cares about?

Speaker 2: 47:04

the CO2 levels and concentration. Covid showed us that things travel in air, including DNA viruses etc. And they actually travel way more than maybe we sort of realized or expected. So yeah, that was definitely interesting.

Speaker 1: 47:28

There's a lot of human dna in the air as well, that's probably people want less, yeah, people want to know, um, probably less of the messiness we are surrounded with, um.

Speaker 1: 47:41

But looking at, like, the investor world of what you've seen in this journey of nine years plus and I think I'm trying to remember where I heard first about you and I think it was an interview in Monaco or something like that a long time ago. I will try to find it like some short audio clip somewhere, or the economist or Monaco entrepreneur or something. Anyway, I will try to find that after. But looking back at this journey and on the investor side, of course, you've seen, and also the finance world in general, you've seen that shift and you've seen that change. But let's say I like to ask this question let's say we're in a theater somewhere in London City or in some financial hub Sao Paulo, in New York and we have a room full of investors and of course they're getting excited about biodiversity. They learned a lot this evening. But if there's one thing you want them to remember, if there's one lesson you would like to but one seed to plant in their minds, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 48:37

accountability. Make sure you know, coming at this from the, the data and measurement space, it's very easy to get excited about new solutions. Remember to, you know, keep creating evidence base that they actually work. Um, but beyond that, remember that it's a whole systems approach that's needed, and and any one piece of the solution cannot deliver at scale on its own without the other pieces, um, so, you know, try to try to make things fit together, um, it's there's too much, there's still too much of working in silos in different parts of the system and we really need to, I think, change our view of investment a little bit to be more collaborative, to find interoperability, to sort of work together in partnership with different parts of the system, to really sort of drive forwards change, because this is real and it's important and we don't have time to get it wrong. So make sure things work and make sure they're connected.

Speaker 1: 49:53

And how often have you been frustrated, let's say, in conversations with the financial world, ambassadors, et cetera, that um want to go for the holy grail or the one tool that fixes it all. Or like really, um, let's say, reductionist mindset, like how it's not, it's not a good question. Let me reframe it like how much of education journey have you done, also for investors? Maybe didn't end up investing, but I'm imagining you have been trying to explain the complexity of nature at a lot of tables with people that that mostly spend their time indoors. They've never run around in the amazon measuring biodiversity. How has that journey been?

Speaker 2: 50:34

yeah, we've done a lot of education over the last 10 years and it continues, and that's fine. You know, we have a lot of people in our team who, who are ecologists, who sort of you know, understand nature increasingly, people who are able to talk multiple different languages. One of the big challenges we have in this space is a lack of common language. And you know, you, literally, you talk to a banker, an ecologist and an ecologist and you say the word taxonomy and they run in literally opposite directions because they mean completely different things to them. So actually, that's another place where, to me, like, the data has this potential to become the common language that different stakeholders that speak different languages are able to to coalesce around, um, but uh, you know, I think when we talk about biodiversity, we talk about the fact that it is complex, um, and that if we rush too fast to solutions that just bypass the complexity, then we end up in a place where we're not fixing the actual problems.

Speaker 2: 51:37

Um, we know how to deal with complexity, we deal with it in. You know, from a data perspective, complexity, we deal with it. And you know, from a data perspective, we deal with big, complex data all over the place in our lives these days. You know everything's ai is not not difficult, um, from a, you know, from a sort of systems and metrics perspective. Actually, the more I talk with the finance world, the more you realize there's complexity everywhere.

Speaker 2: 52:02

People are used to complexity. We don't need to oversimplify this. We need to be very clear that there is complexity, but we need and it's not about bypassing it, it's about finding ways to manage it. Um, so, you know, when we're talking about the way that we deliver data and insights, we're saying look, if you can generate data in its full complexity at the ground level, then you can make it. You can aggregate it up to something very simple At the top level. Just tell the people who need it at the top level whether things are getting better or worse and by how much. But that can be disaggregated into it's much more complex components.

Speaker 1: 52:44

It has to be.

Speaker 2: 52:45

That's what you're saying it has to be so that it can inform the people on the ground how best to manage it, what's working, what's not working, what might be some of the solutions that we want to adapt and trial and iterate. Otherwise, you end up creating different solutions for those different stakeholders who will need different sorts of information in different ways, and iterate Otherwise, you end up creating different solutions for those different stakeholders who all need different sorts of information in different ways, and actually you don't build trust, which is what we urgently need to do. You end up spending a lot more money. So it's really sort of making efficient and effective use of information through dealing with complexity rather than trying to avoid it.

Speaker 1: 53:24

And then we would flip the question and say what would you do if you had a billion, let's say, euros or dollars, to invest? As always, I'm not looking for exact dollar amounts or exact euros, but what would you focus on? Would you build a gigantic supercomputer or a lot of sensors, or maybe air sniffing towers? Or something completely different building a food brand around biodiversity? What would you focus on if you were in the investor side and you have very long timeframes? It has to be invested and it has to come back at some point, but this doesn't need to be a seven year VC investment. What would you focus on if you had that amount of money?

Speaker 2: 54:05

Diversification.

Speaker 2: 54:07

So I think that again I'm coming back to the systems approach this is not one solution done at scale is going to fix everything.

Speaker 2: 54:15

This is all of the pieces of the puzzle have to be innovative and have to fit together, and that includes innovative financing mechanisms, innovative measurement and monitoring mechanisms, innovative solutions and products that actually, sort of, you know, deliver better outcomes, you know, innovative supply chains, innovative ways for data to flow through the system, to build accountability. I think we've, you know, all of these pieces of the puzzle have to come together, and they have to come together fast because otherwise, yeah, like I say, you invest heavily in one space and then you find that there isn't the next piece in the puzzle for that to really deliver the impact. So I would try to take a full systems approach and make sure that we were addressing each part of that to really be able to, you know, re, re-imagine supply chains and reimagine traceability and reimagine data flows, um, so that, so that we can actually improve outcomes yeah, because I think many people I mean it keeps coming back in in the podcast as well here underestimate how untransparent and untraceable many of the current supply chains are.

Speaker 1: 55:26

We see that now with the let's call it panic in certain crops and species that are going to fall under the European deforestation law, and basically you have to show that there's no deforestation involved and many companies don't even know which country they source from, let alone which farmer or which region, which farmer, etc.

Speaker 1: 55:46

Which forest, which, and and there are only a few crops and but it seems to have teeth. As in um, if you get fined, it's a percentage of your european revenue, if I'm not mistaken and suddenly everybody is scrambling because, yeah, they were very comfortable buying from an untransparent, commodified system, except for exceptions, and they were fighting. But you now suddenly see I've yet to see if that leads to change of course because this whole system we built is built on commodities and you can buy in Vietnam or in Ghana, it doesn't really matter, for whatever ends up in the supermarket. So we're going to see the transformation to decommodification and transparency and a lot of tension, I think. And what do you see there, as that shifted also in the last few. You say, especially last few years, like do you see that urgency now coming? Okay, transparency is a thing or transparency is is more than just a few nice pictures for whatever impact report we release.

Speaker 2: 56:42

Yeah, this is such a huge issue?

Speaker 2: 56:46

No, not yet. And it's so urgent and it's so important. And the companies that are leading the way in this space are the ones that do happen to have some visibility over their supply chains and can trace things all the way to the ground. And even those companies can't do that everywhere. Often they can only do it in a few places. It's something that I see.

Speaker 2: 57:14

I sometimes get concerned when I've been on various panels around sort of TNFD and things like that, and it's very quickly brought up as an obstacle to having real data. Oh well, of course you know none of this is possible because we don't know where our impacts are. Or you know, most companies don't know where their assets are. Most companies don't know where their assets are. There's a real risk that a lot of effort gets put into making workarounds to deal with the fact that companies don't have visibility over their supply chains, rather than putting all of that effort into making it. So the companies down there have to have visibility of their supply chains, because actually that's the only way you've got levers that you can pull to make real change, only way you've got levers that you can pull to to make real change.

Speaker 2: 58:05

Um, and and you know we're not going to be successful in addressing, you know, either the climate or the biodiversity crises actually if we don't change that um. So I think it's um, yeah, that's, that's something that we're not yet seeing real change in. It is complex. The complexity of these supply chains are massive. We hear about some companies that are taking more and more of that supply chain in-house so that they have full sort of visibility over the full value chain, and maybe that will be a trend that we see more of. But I think you know we need solutions.

Speaker 1: 58:42

We need solutions to to bring visibility and traceability, and we need legal frameworks that you know increasingly require companies to have to do it yeah, because that's the big issue and challenge from a system that's based on commodification and on transparency like how much of it, how difficult, of course can be difficult to switch to or to to make that transition to transparent systems and and and not being able to just buy everywhere where the price is low or wherever it's convenient and and. But yet, in the core of many of these companies, that is what they do or what they used to do, and we are asking them to basically become something different and a supply web and all of these nice terms. And I'm wondering if many can, simply because it's not in their DNA or they're not structurally made to have long-term relationship or value webs, et cetera. And some will, I, I think, as in our transitions, but there's going to be a lot of pain, or a lot of transition pain, let's say, for the ones that will be kicking and screaming um, for yeah, but we saw again.

Speaker 2: 59:52

You know, come back to covid when it's possible when when businesses have to change, they can change.

Speaker 2: 59:59

They can change pretty fast and they can change pretty comprehensively. So a a lot of this is just. You know there's obviously a lot of inbuilt inertia. There's a resistance to change if you don't have to. But we see it ourselves that you know we do way more on our sort of climate reporting and commitments than we have to for a business of our size. But our investors made it a condition of their investment that we did it and our biggest clients make it a condition of their custom that we do it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:28

And so then it becomes a business. You know a business reason to do it, which is just a no-brainer, and so you do it and you put the effort in. And when you put the effort in you discover that actually there's loads of other benefits you hadn't thought of that come from having done that. And it's the same with the supply chain visibility. You know you have so much more resilience, more ability to to change behaviors, to sort of, you know, bring in efficiencies and improvements etc.

Speaker 2: 1:00:54

When you do know where your produce is coming from and you have direct relationships through throughout that. So the companies that have invested in that by and large have found that there are, you know, multiple benefits that come from it. So I think it's super important, I think it will need. You know there's so much that can be done through some leaders demonstrating the art of the possible sort of, you know, creating, creating systems that that can enable this to happen. But to mainstream it you then do need policy and regulation and, you know, financial penalties for getting these, for not complying, to really sort of shift the dial.

Speaker 1: 1:01:34

Which is a nice bridge to our magic wand question, like, if there's one thing you could change overnight in any of the spaces we've discussed, and beyond as as well, but one thing only, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 1:01:47

subsidies reform. I think there's, you know, going back to the, the opportunities we have for win-wins, that to be able to manage the land in ways that is better for nature, better better for climate and better for produce and the economy. It's there for us, but it's being undermined by subsidies that push in the wrong direction, that make it artificially cheaper to do things the wrong way and that hide the true costs of doing it the wrong way. And I think that it's not removing subsidies, it's changing the incentives that they're used for use subsidies to help with the transition from degrading land use through to regenerative land use and get people on the path to really being able to realize the economic benefits of also sort of farming in harmony with nature.

Speaker 1: 1:02:45

And do you see that as a company with a global reach, do you see which places are leading in the, let's say, incentivizing the right thing?

Speaker 2: 1:02:57

That's a good question. I mean I remember hearing really interesting yeah, I mean I don't have any good examples off the top of my head, I'm sure there are some actually and I've seen some of the development banks and people sort of trying to think about how they can help with sort of bridging the financial gap to transition land use, to transition land use um. But I remember hearing a really interesting anecdote in one of the pre um, pre-cop 15 meetings in geneva around, because one of the one of the global biodiversity framework targets is around subsidies reform and there'd been a big piece of work done done on that and they found that in many cases the subsidies are so deeply baked into the sort of national economic systems that they're not even recognized as subsidies anymore. So you know, the researchers would say they would go to governments and say you know, what about this? What about your subsidies for x? And they would say, well, we don't have any subsidies for that. And they would be like you do. They're just, you know they're baked into the whole system, so you're not even recognizing them. So of course you're not doing anything about them.

Speaker 2: 1:04:10

So you know, I think it's a real, I think it's a real challenge? I think there's a lot of. You know there's a lot of good work going on in europe. Um, you know, we're doing um some really interesting work as part of a big european horizon project, looking at um sort of opportunities to to reform the common agricultural policy. Um, you know, I think there's there's opportunities in the uk as we sort of figure out how we come out of the the cap and and look to incentivize farming in the right way. But yeah, there's a long way to go.

Speaker 1: 1:04:46

I think it's a very neglected piece of work, maybe not from an investor perspective, even though I think every investor should have a certain carve out of their portfolio, focusing on policy and focusing on subsidies and focusing on reform there. It might not be the best investment you will ever do, but it might help the rest of your portfolio quite significantly if you can move some of these levers. And especially, I don't think that the investment or the grants you need there are significantly high. They need to be super smart people, very capable lawyers, very capable lobbyists, et cetera, et cetera. But it's not a huge endeavor, it seems, and we have a chance now in the US with the Farm Bill, and in Europe and in the UK and probably a few other places as well, where with some very specific acupuncture notes, you can move, potentially move hundreds and hundreds of billions Huge.

Speaker 2: 1:05:41

I mean, but this is why I come come back to with the whole systems thinking piece. It's not just investing in this one shiny solution over here.

Speaker 1: 1:05:51

It's actually also investigating.

Speaker 2: 1:05:53

Yeah, exactly, but it's investing in the infrastructure and the architecture and the enabling policy frameworks and all of those things that will actually allow, um, you know, allow things to to move and mainstream and scale up fast, um, and do you see your investors doing that?

Speaker 1: 1:06:13

do you see your investors like, taking on that, that journey as well, like, okay, we invested in this biodiversity company, great, okay, tick the box and now we covered that. And no, actually there's a whole role for you to play in, in the, the rooms of power where you also circulate to, to bring this up and say, actually there's a lot of incentives really paying well for the wrong things yeah, in some senses that we know we are part of that sort of infrastructure.

Speaker 2: 1:06:40

Um, you know we are an enabler um to to change, rather that sort of infrastructure. You know we are an enabler to change rather than sort of delivering the change itself, and so, almost by default, the investors that have chosen to invest in us are investing in that and they are, by sort of branching out from purely climate solutions into sort of nature and biodiversity. You know they're some of the sort of most, um, yeah, I think, sophisticated and forward-thinking um investors that that are out there, um, but, um, you know it's a challenge even when you come then to, all of our investors need us to report on impact metrics as well as the sort of, you know, core financial metrics. That becomes really hard for us because we're sort of so deeply embedded and woven into the system that being able to say, well, we deliver.

Speaker 1: 1:07:31

How many hectares do you touch?

Speaker 2: 1:07:33

Exactly? Or, like you know, how much carbon do you help save? Well, generally, like you know, by helping to improve outcomes for biodiversity, that will be having a knock-on effect for climate. It's really hard to put specific numbers to, so it's interesting. We spend quite a bit of time trying to think through all of that, but there's more work to be done, but there are those that are starting.

Speaker 1: 1:07:57

In a small way. We sometimes have to do the same. We get some support, sometimes a small grant, here and there, and we have to fill out these impact reports. And also there, how do you quantify the impact of a podcast and 300 plus episodes? There is impact, absolutely, but then tons of carbon or life changed or et cetera.

Speaker 2: 1:08:21

It just becomes a very interesting exercise, you don't always get that full feedback either.

Speaker 1: 1:08:29

Never, almost never.

Speaker 2: 1:08:29

You probably inspired all sorts of people to do all sorts of things, but they haven't necessarily told you about it. And it's the same for us. You know our data you know goes out there is used. We hear some stories about how you know species have been found that they didn't know were there and they've put new action plans in place, etc. And those are so great to hear. But for everyone that we hear there's a whole set that that we never, never, do so. Um, you know, partly that's also we need to build in better sort of communication and feedback loops, but it's big, big investment no, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:09:00

And with us, I mean we record like this, we share. We know more or less how many people listen really, more or less, we know more or less where they are in terms of geography, and that's pretty much it, except if somebody sends an email and a message, which I always read. So please send messages if you have been inspired, if you changed jobs. We know people left big corporates and and founded a lot of things we know, but we only know from the people that raise their hand and send a message um, best way to reach us, by the way, through the website, um, but I love reading those, but it's one in x and and the rest you have no clue, like people and and, but, which is perfectly fine. It's not that I have to capture. Apart from it, it's nice to read and, but then we were forced to fill out those things Like, yeah, what am I going to put there? We have some nice reviews if you want to read it, but it's not really statistical, impressive, let's say. But anyway, we're definitely, in that sense, making an impact.

Speaker 1: 1:09:55

And as a final question, because I want to be conscious of your time as well, what do you believe to be true? This comes from a john kampf, a question he loves to ask what do you believe to be true, in this case about the gender of agriculture, but also biodiversity, that others don't? And I ask it because I'm curious where you contrain, let's go, you go, let's say you go to your um, to conferences. There must be, no, a whole biodiversity measuring industry starting to pop up, um, when you're with your peers in that sense, with other companies, with investors, people that are going deep, let's say, the entrepreneurial biodiversity route, where do you, where do you think different if you are with with that group of people, with with your peers in that sense?

Speaker 2: 1:10:35

I think biodiversity is resilience. I think it's really, you know, biodiversity is not just nice to have wildlife. Biodiversity is what makes our ecosystems function and do what we ask of them. It's absolutely core and integral. There's, you know, there's often been a narrative around biodiversity co-benefits of investing in other things. So particularly investing in sort of, you know, carbon um, and oh well, you know, as something extra nice on the top we might get some, some some animals, um. The absolute opposite is true. You invest in nature and you get a whole raft of other co-benefits from that, including including carbon sequestration, including greater resilience of supply chains, including the opportunity to have more productive landscapes for longer, which also provide natural benefits. So I think that whole narrative just needs to be flipped on its head. And investing in nature is not just it's nothing fluffy, it's absolutely core and fundamental.

Speaker 1: 1:11:48

And do you see that landing? This is such a perfect ending. And then I keep going with another question. Anyway, I might regret it, maybe not. Do you see that landing in, let's say, the hardcore climate investor world as well, that are really, of course, course, all about measurement, project drawdown and, okay, how do many gigatons are we avoiding, etc. Etc. And and, unfortunately, investing a lot in technology solutions and now suddenly they're waking up to, oh, nature is interesting as well, like how, how do you see that message of this is the basis and then everything else we can think about, but unless we fix this, basically there's nothing else. Do you see that starting to land with people more in the traditional, let's say, technology, climate investing world?

Speaker 2: 1:12:35

In some senses and in some spaces yes, particularly there's actually an incredibly cost-effective investment if you do it right. Um, but the you know, if you're investing in, if you're investing in a nature-based solution for climate, um, and you've got this. You know temptation to just go and plan to take your monoculture of eucalyptus or whatever. The ability of that ecosystem to persist and to thrive and to continue delivering the carbon benefits totally relies on that ecosystem's overall health and that means having all the different components of the ecosystem, all of the different pieces of biodiversity that support it to be successful. If you don't have those things, the likelihood of actually delivering your carbon benefits for a long time and having any kind of resilience is minimal. So you know, it's incredibly, it's incredibly short sighted from the carbon perspective to try to to do that, from the carbon perspective to try to do that.

Speaker 2: 1:13:41

And then you think you know nature versus sort of technology. Well, again, it's all the co-benefits that you get. So you invest in mangroves, for example? Sure, you'll capture some carbon, but you're also going to bring back fisheries and local agriculture and local economies and save potentially billions in coastal infrastructure to protect coastlines from flood surges and everything. So, in terms of killing many birds with one stone. Investing in nature and doing it properly, working with people on the ground who know how to do it, investing in adaptive management, etc. Will pay off many, many times over.

Speaker 1: 1:14:27

Yeah, and I think we still haven't seen the financial sector, the insurance sector, like the large amount of money, the large pockets of money, waking up to that.

Speaker 1: 1:14:37

They're still very comfortable in investing in the next climate tech VC and things like that, but I think we're. I mean, it just makes a lot of economic sense. It fits very well in the spreadsheet if you want it to, and then we're going to see a lot of people wanting to get in, and then it's going to be the question of who is able underground, these 10,000 thousands that you mentioned and we need way more that have the measuring tools as well to actually do this at scale and in speed as well. And that's going to be, I think, the challenge. I don't think the challenge necessarily is going to be the financial capability, because we know that can shift and change. We've seen that many times before. But then do we have the infrastructure, do we have the ways of putting that money and energy and resources to work, and the way of the people and the technology as well, to plant all those mangroves and to monitor, and to the seedlings and nurseries, and so we have to.

Speaker 2: 1:15:30

And meanwhile ensuring that the local communities on the ground aren't being screwed over.

Speaker 2: 1:15:34

You know, if there's a lot of money, coming into these things there are a lot of stakeholders in this and it's complicated and we need radical collaboration at a scale that we've never had before. There are some really good examples of it Interaction Alliance, which has banks and insurance companies and NGOs and local communities, sort of all together looking at holistic solutions for bringing funding into supporting natural coastal ecosystems, and those are groundbreaking. We need more and more of those sorts of forums. And what's been?

Speaker 2: 1:16:16

You know, I remember sitting in a pavilion at COP in a session run by Aura, where they had all of those stakeholders and governments as well in this room, and one of them would say I remember one of the government representatives from a small island state saying, well, the problem is, when we try to do this, we run up against that problem, and someone from the insurance industry would be like, oh, we had no idea that was a problem, we can do something about that. And you think, actually, just, you know, bringing people together into spaces to talk about these. What are systemic challenges? There are solutions to all of them, but we need to. We need to build trust, we need to build common language and we we all need to spend more time together.

Speaker 1: 1:17:04

And that's a perfect end to this conversation. Thank you so much, kate, for coming on here to share your journey, which you've shared many times before, but hopefully some other angles we covered, and, of course, the biodiversity space as it's been exploding, still very small. We're definitely at the beginning, so I'm looking forward to keep checking in and see where it brings us brilliant.

Speaker 2: 1:17:25

Thank you so much. It's been great, great to have a chance to catch up with you thank you so much for listening all the way to the end.

Speaker 1: 1:17:40

For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.