NatureMetrics turns nature into data. It simplifies the collection and reporting of environmental DNA (eDNA) to help commercial and conservation organisations make more informed choices to protect and maintain biodiverse ecosystems.
Tackling environmental degradation through conservation and restoration requires a deep understanding of a location’s biodiversity, and the unique challenges of its ecosystems.
Traditionally, large field teams collect samples, which is slow and expensive, and often fails to build an accurate picture. In addition, data is often not explained effectively and distilling complex insights into easily communicated stories can lead to misinterpretation and greenwashing. NatureMetrics changes all this.
All living things leave traces of their DNA in the environment. NatureMetrics uses this to identify individual species from small samples of soil, water and air. The eDNA collected offers a detailed picture of a site’s biodiversity and a complete view of the full spectrum of life, from bacteria to blue whales. Dr Kat Bruce founded NatureMetrics following her PhD in tropical ecology and DNA metabarcoding. Her particular interest lies in bringing together the worlds of research, industry and policy to advance our capacity to monitor and understand the natural world.
This approach revolutionises the scale of data collection. Anyone from local communities and school children to scientists, park rangers and site contractors can collect eDNA with simple kits. In the UK, NatureMetrics has run citizen science projects with members of the National Trust (UK), local conservation groups and schoolchildren to collect eDNA. Each sample gathers vast amounts of DNA, allowing big data analytics to generate simple, accurate trends and actionable insights.
Through 1,500 projects across 110 countries, they have an estimated 9% coverage of Earth’s eDNA, and have sampled over 5000 km2 (that’s 700,000 football pitches) creating essential biodiversity baselines. They have also detected over 300 threatened species, and supported conservation and restoration work. This has created jobs and offered biodiversity monitoring training to thousands of people, empowering female and underrepresented communities around the world.
Businesses and organisations work with NatureMetrics to evaluate potential outcomes of commercial activities or conservation work. At Board level, this offers actionable insights to inform strategies and decision-making. By using data to tell true stories and present metrics clearly and accessibly, companies can make the right choices to minimise their environmental impact. NatureMetrics also helps define industry best practice for reporting and disclosure, aligned to all major reporting requirements.
Dr Kat Bruce, Founder, NatureMetrics
NatureMetrics employs 140 people and has over 500 customers across the UK, Canada, Europe, Middle East and South Africa, and labs in the UK, Canada and Indonesia. They are expanding their Partner Lab Programme as a rapid, cost-effective way to extend their data collection capabilities and reach.
Their work is helping businesses meet the increasing demand for evidence-based nature reporting and disclosure, new nature-related regulations and to manage stakeholder pressures in high economic value sectors. By supporting 1% of the global market opportunity for early adopters of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), they estimate $10bn of new finance will flow into nature monitoring, restoration and reporting by 2030.
