Building Together in 2025
Here at Homeworld Collective, we’re feeling both grateful and energized as we head into the new year and a new phase for our mission to empower the climate biotech community. Our work in 2025 was a vivid reminder that when we connect researchers to high-leverage problems, the right collaborators, and funding resources, they respond with creativity and rigor.
Homeworld exists to nurture the growth of climate biotech by connecting practitioners to the highest-leverage problems, the right collaborators, and the research support needed to translate ideas into progress. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve built together and the impact it’s had.
Reaching Our Community
- Sharing the pulse of the field: 22 newsletter issues – 5 in 2025 – to 1,325 practitioner subscribers (65% open rate, 10% YoY growth)
- Increased visibility and engagement: 42,000 all-time website visitors (47% annual growth), and #1 Google result for “Climate Biotech” search
- In-person community: 12 social events across 7 cities with 400+ attendees
- 3 field-defining workshops: convening practitioners for personal connection and collective problem identification, including 80+ experts interviewed to craft agendas
- Platforming thought leaders: 30 podcast episodes of The Climate Biotech Podcast, 7,500+ downloads, Top 25% of podcasts on Buzzsprout, 52% audience growth in 2025
Connecting Practitioners to Actionable Knowledge
- Calls to action: published 22 new problem statements derived from our Workshop on Biological Methane Removal, co-authored with 32 experts across 7 countries
- Launched two new open-access tools to enable impactful biomining research: the Orecast Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) tool and the Critical Minerals Explorer
- More to come: white papers will be released in the coming months based on workshops across our programs in Critical Minerals, Pollution, and Greenhouse Gas Removal
Directly Supporting Research
- $1.5M deployed across 12 GHGR research teams in 2025
- All-time Garden Grants: $2.85M+ distributed, 28 projects, 77 researchers supported
- Providing value for all Garden Grants applicants: proposals received 250+ expert reviews and 787 inline reviewer comments, with all applicants receiving full, transparent feedback
Looking Ahead to Homeworld Phase 2
Homeworld is now entering a “phase two” focused on refining and scaling what we’ve piloted in our first three years. You can expect more community convenings across an increasing number of cities, an ambassador program to empower community leaders, a larger number of problem statements produced more quickly, increasingly focused calls for proposals, and an accelerator program to deepen our grantee support while nucleating productive research communities.
In our Greenhouse Gas Removal (GHGR) Program, expect a new fieldbuilding cycle focused on methane removal through enhanced natural uptake in caves and mines — an idea originally proposed by Garden Grants recipients Bob Leung and Sean Bay, which we think needs far more attention.
In our Critical Minerals program, expect a white paper, a series of problem statements, and another round of Garden Grants focused on recovering critical minerals from complex source materials.
Get Involved
We’re also fundraising to support Homeworld’s next round of efforts. You can help us by introducing us to philanthropists and foundations who are excited about the potential of climate biotech. Reach out to paul@homeworld.bio.
Thank you for being part of the climate biotech community and for helping to empower practitioners to unlock scalable solutions for planetary health.