E-BIOM, a Belgian company specialising in biodiversity analysis through environment DNA, made its first contribution to the Cali Fund. Environmental DNA, or eDNA, consists of traces of DNA left by organisms in their surroundings, including in samples of water, soil or other environmental matrices. E-BIOM specialises in turning these invisible traces into standardised, reproducible, and usable data. This work enables a better understanding of ecosystems, monitoring of how they change, and support for the environmental decisions of businesses and public authorities.
Additionally, the company has announced an ongoing commitment to voluntarily allocate 0.1% of the value of each of its environment DNA services to the Fund.
“Environmental DNA allows us to reveal an invisible biodiversity and turn it into information that can be used for decision-making. For a company that lives off this data, it now seems only logical that part of the value it generates should return to funding the living world that makes it possible.” said Jonathan Marescaux, Founder and CEO of E-BIOM.
With E-BIOM, three companies have now contributed to the Cali Fund, each using nature’s genetic data in a different way: artificial intelligence, biocatalysis, and biodiversity monitoring. Together they show how widely the value of this data reaches, and how directly it can be shared back with nature and its custodians.
Decisions anticipated at COP17 in Armenia are expected to give companies of all sizes clearer ground to follow their lead.