The Earth Genome

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Model & Strategy

Earth Genome’s vision is for the world’s decisionmakers to consistently and routinely take into account the full value of nature — leading to greater conservation of natural systems, and averting economic and social disruptions due to the misuse of “natural capital.” The organization seeks to bring a range of stakeholders together to create breakthrough solutions addressing some of the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems including water, food and energy.

The Earth Genome is creating a technology platform that will be the world’s first-ever easy-to-use, scientifically credible, curated source for global data on natural resources, coupled with key decision-making tools. Together, these will exponentially lower the cost and time for corporations and investors to gain insights from Earth “big data” and make better decisions for their organizations, society and the planet. The organization will drive collaboration and innovation across many stakeholders: data providers, scientists, tool visualization providers, and diverse end users.

 

At a Glance
Founded: 2015
By: Steve McCormick and Glen Low
Environment & Climate Change
Location of work: Domestic, West Coast, Southwest, International, Asia
http://www.earthgenome.org/
The Earth Genome
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Informed decisions. Better outcomes.
Meet Steve McCormick and Glen Low

Co-Founder Steve McCormick has dedicated his career to environmental conservation. After many years at The Nature Conservancy, he realized that his actions to date had been essential, but lacked the cumulative effect that was needed. Too often the pressing needs of people were felt to be at odds with those of the environment. What was needed was greater understanding and insight into this tradeoff. While at The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Steve tested and refined this theory and shifted the Foundation’s efforts toward sustainability.

Meanwhile, co-founder Glen Low was engaged with some of the world’s largest corporations creating breakthrough solutions on environmental sustainability. While at Blu Skye, Glen worked with some of the most innovative Fortune 100 companies on optimizing their actions related to food, energy, climate, waste, water and human well-being. He saw firsthand the tremendous impacts that major corporations have on the planet and the need to create more sustainable outcomes.

Both Steve and Glen are now working to use the Earth Genome to fundamentally inform and change influential market decisions to better align our economic system with the planet’s ecological system.

Steve is the former CEO and President of The Nature Conservancy. He is also the former President of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Glen is a former Principal at both Bain & Company and Blu Skye. He is also a frequent lecturer at U.C. Berkeley, where he has taught corporate sustainability at the Executive Education, MBA, and undergraduate levels.

IMPACT

EG is currently engaged with critical end-users on several decision support tools that address water issues. Development is now underway in Texas, California, and Pakistan. These tools are modular and extensible, supporting scaling to additional users with similar decision contexts.

In 2018, EG delivered our Groundwater Recharge Assessment Tool (GRAT), which enables CA water districts to optimize recharge of depleted aquifers, to a third water district. They also launched their imagery platform and began product development on a set of interoperable tools in TX to enable new water transactions to increase the resilience of flows, species, cities, and industries. Completed v.1 of their local basin health assessment tool in Pakistan.

 

Key 2019 focus: Building a modular set of tools for public and private users. Scaling GRAT across CA and developing advanced functionality to support CA Department of Water Resources Flood-MAR pilots. Extending their TX tool platform to enable optimized investments in restoration and water rights to maintain environmental flows.

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