It's hard to believe, but it's nearly been a year since we embarked on this incredible journey. It’s been a whirlwind, with incredible progress, and huge learning. These are some of the most valuable lessons we’ve learned.
Coalition building really matters - As we watch the global bioeconomy grow - one of the most critical opportunities is to help this growing field see that the opportunity for environmental and public benefit is within reach and that there are ready, trusted partners at the table to help make that happen. This potential will not be fully realized without cross-sector coalitions that foster resource sharing - and trust.
This is a precise art requiring substantial techno-economic analysis, stakeholder mapping, decision modeling and strategy - and doesn’t happen organically. The science of how people come together - across industries, skill sets, lexicons, sectors - is just as important as the science that results in labs.
And it is most effective when there are follow-on resources at the table from the start. When there is funding at the table ahead of time to catalyze the most viable solutions the coalitions generate, then trust turns into traction and we can aim for near term solutions.
In our mission to point the bioeconomy at environmental solutions for threatened ecologies we have seen these things over and over - and in 2024 we aim to triple down on what we’ve learned with the launch of a national Environmental Biotechnology Council, completion of two Bio-Regional Working Group Series and start of a third, and the launch of our second cohort of Indigenous Futures Fellows. More on these below. We hope you’ll partner with us in this work - learn more and support our work.
On a personal note, this year has brought more than a few moments that have truly rocked my world - and reminded me that the only moments we have contact with are the present ones. May we move into 2024 with open minds, open hearts, and with every effort to use these present moments in service of a more resilient and sustainable future.
With - more than anything - gratitude for all you each do in the world and the chance to get to do it with you,
Teal and the Lab to Land Team
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Our 2024 plans: A specific focus on convening, public-impact, and techno-economic analysis to drive effective and ethical environmental biotechnology work.
Launch a national Environmental Biotechnology Council, in partnership with the Aspen Institute’s Energy and Environment Program and under the steering committee guidance of David Babson, Nazish Jeffriesh, Beth Shapiro and Ann Caroline Thresher;
Complete two Bio-Regional Working Group Series (wildfire, coastal lands) - in partnership with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative and the California Coastal Climate Reserve - and Launch a third (with a possible focus on remediation - if anyone wants to talk about tires, dry cleaning and mining just let us know!); and
Launch a second cohort of Indigenous Futures Fellows.
And we have other coalition building, techno-economic analysis and convening series in development with some remarkable partners.
Some shout outs: There has been incredible progress in the field of environmental biotechnology this year.
Modular bioreactors to bring the bioeconomy to the maker space
At least one more microbiologist at COP this year than last
Homeworld Collective launches the inaugural cohort of Ideas Matter fellows
And thank you's - to the incredible coalition of partners who have joined us in this first year of work:
the Aspen Institute’s Energy + Environment Program, the Gordon + Betty Moore Foundation’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Strategic Initiatives team, the California Coastal Climate Reserve - and our badass academic partners at UCSC’s Genome Institute, UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute and UC San Diego’s Indigenous Futures Institute. And all of this with the support of the Kohlhardt Family Foundation, the Crown Family Philanthropies and others. Thank you, we’re honored and floored and what we’ve accomplished in a year, and grateful to get to do this work (frankly, at all, but, particularly) with your partnership. It makes it a whole lot more effective, and a whole lot more fun and interesting.
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