Mother Nature really rocks. Whether we’re talking land, sea or sky, nature’s natural systems are remarkably waste-free, closed loop and regenerative. Unfortunately though, as a species we’ve been doing an excellent job of throwing that balance right out of whack.
In the face of our sustained collective onslaught on Mother Nature’s ability to do her job, here at Wilful we’re increasingly buoyed by the growth of organisations addressing this affront by working on initiatives that accelerate biological processes which already occur naturally. By building on a pre-existing natural process, these pioneers are accelerating nature’s capability to do what has already been done for millennia: and we’re fully onboard.
In fact, we’re so into supporting such innovators that we’ve been hard-pressed to pick just seven to share here. We’re sure you’ve got even more to tell us about, though, so do drop us a line at by emailing direct: hello@thewilful.com.
One important note: to be super clear, when we’re talking about accelerating nature’s natural behaviour, we see a yawning difference between this and the much more drastic option of large-scale geoengineering. Little is known about the real-world effect of initiatives that deliberately alter Earth’s climate at a macro scale to counteract the effects of climate change (injecting aerosols into the stratosphere for solar geoengineering, or marine cloud brightening, anyone?). Yup, we’ll be delving further into the highly controversial side of geoengineering in a forthcoming piece, but suffice to say it is a spicy topic.
For now, though, hands up if you’ve spotted an increase in chatter around ‘enhanced weathering’? This accelerates the natural process of weathering – which is the chemical and physical breakdown of rocks – by spreading finely crushed, readily dissolvable silicate minerals onto surfaces. This then speeds up chemical reactions between rocks, water and air.
That’s not all, though; this dynamic process also removes CO2 from the atmosphere. So, it could potentially help to capture gigatons of carbon dioxide if used in forests, on agricultural farmland, or spread upon oceans around the world.
No surprise, then, that enhanced weathering is being vigorously explored as a significant part of our climate solution. And there’s a raft of innovators lining up to be part of this adventure. Take, for example, 44.01. If the name rings bells, that’ll be because it was the winner of the ‘Fix Our Climate’ category in the 2022 Earthshot Prize. 44.01’s innovation centres around peridotite, a form of rock whose mineralisation already occurs as a natural process when CO2 dissolved in rainwater reacts with the rock. However, to mineralise even a small amount of CO2 can take decades. So 44.01 is turbo-charging this process by injecting carbonated fluid into seams of peridotite deep underground. This eliminates CO2 by turning it into rock, removing it from the atmosphere safely, permanently – and in less than 12 months. Quite the game changer.
Another innovator in terrestrial carbon sequestration is The Future Forest Company. Cited as one of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas in 2021, aside from purely planting trees Future Forest accelerates naturally occurring mineral weathering by crushing basalt rocks into dust, spreading them onto the forest floor, and then measuring CO2 uptake. And by also blending biochar – which improves degraded, nutrient-depleted soil and enhances plant growth and crop yields on farms – with enhanced weathering, the soil health is improved and carbon can be stored for hundreds or thousands of years. Pretty epic stuff. No wonder The Future Forest Company was one of just six projects from which Stripe purchased advance carbon removal credits as part of its Stripe Climate programme in May 2021. The process of enhanced rock weathering proved so promising that a new dedicated company, UN-DO, was spun out from The Future Forest Company’s original enhanced weathering project and now sells carbon credits verified by Puro.earth’s carbon removal standard.
And while we’re talking about the forest floor, we were bowled over to learn about another great start-up whose work is taking shape literally under our feet. Funga focuses on the unique partnership between forests and fungi, and is shining a new light on the accelerative impact that rewilding our soils can have on below-ground biodiversity.
Through field trials, the folks at Funga have discovered that reintroducing the right microbial biodiversity in forest soils can significantly accelerate not only tree growth, but also carbon capture in tree stems too. Check out founder and forest microbiologist Dr Colin Averill’s TED talk to get the full picture of how they’re combining modern DNA sequencing, machine learning and forest microbiome intel to help address the climate crisis.
And another innovator we’re loving is Carbfix. Winner of not one, but two Milestone Prizes alongside its partners in the first round of the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal funded by the Musk Foundation, Carbfix injects CO2 dissolved in water into basaltic rocks, where it turns to stone in less than two years through a technology that imitates and accelerates natural processes. Another permanent and safe carbon solution potentially brought to the table? Bingo.
Indeed, frankly we could have titled this piece ‘An ode of appreciation to the humble rock’, because as we’ve learned, it turns out they’re rather important. Just ask Planetary Technologies: they have developed a process to safely purify alkaline rocks that remain after mining. When added to the ocean, this would rapidly enhance the ocean’s natural ability to draw out and permanently sequester carbon from the atmosphere (more of which later). And it turns out that the purifying of mining rock also produces clean hydrogen as a by-product, which could rather handily be used as a zero-carbon fuel. As another XPRIZE Carbon Removal Milestone Award winner, Planetary will be using its $1 million prize to achieve a full-scale demonstration of its technology. We’ll be following progress avidly.
Another company we have our sights trained on is Heirloom, a minerals-focussed direct air capture (DAC) solution, which raised a whopping $53 million in Series A funding last March. Turns out that naturally occurring minerals are vital carbon sinks which have been balancing our planet’s carbon cycles for millennia. Over geological timescales, carbon dioxide in the air and water chemically bind to these materials and permanently turn to stone. But enter Heirloom’s DAC technology, and this natural process is enhanced to help minerals absorb CO2 from the ambient air in weeks, rather than years. As Heirloom puts it: ‘By combining the best of engineering and nature, we can offer the most cost-effective and scalable Direct Air Capture solution in the world.’ You heard it here first, people.
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget coastal enhanced weathering, potentially coming to a beach near you soon! Vesta is a non-profit focussing on the benefits of adding a carbon-removing sand made of the natural mineral olivine to beaches and coastal areas, where it can dissolve in seawater. By accelerating the natural weathering process of shorelines, Vesta’s plan is to help reduce ocean acidity and remove carbon dioxide permanently.
And boy, do we need to reduce ocean acidification, which is threatening the fundamental chemical balance of our oceans across the planet. So ‘ocean alkalinity enhancement’ -– where alkaline substances are added to seawater to counter acidification and accelerate natural carbon sink capabilities – has been, ahem, really making waves of late. And now, pilot programmes are exploring this potential solution out in the real world: last year in Florida ocean liming passed its first field test, neutralising some of the acidity at the test site and – ta dah! – succeeding in drawing down carbon in the process. You don’t need to be a scientific genius to realise that this is a significant milestone in OAE’s journey and an indicator of its potential to help mitigate the climate crisis.
Indeed, many scientists and innovators across these nature-accelerating solutions agree that it’s time to move from the lab and into the field: there’s only so far modelling can take you. But – and it’s a big but – it is imperative that any potential advances need to be proven to be viable and safe, with no negative impact on environmental and societal ecosystems or services. Gauging the feasibility of these solutions’ responsible deployment is critical – and of course top of all priorities for our innovators featured here. As Planetary Technologies for one states: ‘Ocean alkalinity enhancement has enormous potential to help mitigate the climate crisis, but steps must be taken to ensure that alkalinity addition is safe, and we still have a lot to learn. For this reason, Planetary is developing a detailed framework aimed at ensuring alkalinity addition at any site is preceded by detailed research and significant public awareness.’
You won’t find any credible stakeholder disagreeing that rigorous due diligence and tests to understand nature’s full response need to happen before deploying any of these technologies on a larger scale. Happily though, a raft of robust science, research, testing and road maps to understand various ecological consequences are either in the pipeline, or already happening. It feels rather like the dawn of a new era, and we are fully signed-up enthusiastic supporters.
