As this year draws to a close, I find myself looking back over the past twelve months with an incredible sense of pride for what we have achieved. This year we stepped into the first year of our new strategy, a ten-year commitment to help bring nature’s intelligence into the heart of how we make decisions and the world that we create. Our goal was to be disruptive and to challenge the current economic and social paradigms to bring nature inspired brilliance to their core. We also committed to engage new audiences and to open up the opportunity for everyone to learn from nature by building our community engagement programming.
A year ago we started to plant seeds, a hopeful gesture toward a future that could, if tended carefully, grow exponentially into a life-giving future. This year has shown us that those seeds are already germinating, sending out roots and shoots in directions we could not have predicted but that feel unmistakably alive. I feel Jane Goodall would approve of our spread of a hopeful future…
Nature builds strategically, through networks, through relationships, through accumulations of small but significant changes that become transformative over time. This year we had moments of emergence, moments of stillness, moments of recalibration, and many moments where the path ahead seemed to reveal itself only because we kept moving with intention.
One of the brightest moments of emergence came with the launch of AskNature Chat. For a long time, we have been asked for a way to access biological wisdom more easily. AskNature Chat represents a new kind of relationship between humans and nature’s genius. It offers a way to listen differently, to ask better questions, and to encounter biological strategies in a way that feels personal and immediate. While the world of AI seems fraught with challenges, we felt it was important to have a credible and credentialed resource that could frame the conversation. We know this will evolve as we learn and understand more about the role of AI in our future.
Another important strand of our year has been the inaugural launch of our Co-Lab on Buildings and Cities. Spending time each month with this incredible group of thought leaders to explore how we can mobilize and accelerate Nature Positive Buildings, Cities and Infrastructure based on nature’s genius has been the highlight of my year. We can’t wait to share what comes out of it early next year.
We also opened the doors to AskNature Learning, our new series of courses designed to give audiences an interactive opportunity to explore how learning from nature can transform their work, projects, or practice. Our courses are an opportunity to bring the content on Ask Nature and our programs to life and to dig deeper amidst a cohort of fellow learners. We plan to expand our offerings in 2026. Our Nature of Fashion program is gaining momentum with a powerful narrative campaign emerging in early 2026.
Our partnerships deepened and multiplied as well over the course of the year. Working with Atmos, One Earth, Re:Tv, Earthshot Prize, IKEA Action Speaks, Bioneers, Circle Economy, Or Foundation, Beneficial Design Institute, Transition Networks International and others together with our wonderful sister organizations Biomimicry 3.8, Biomimicry Center at ASU and Biomimicry for Social Innovation has expanded our horizons and invited new audiences into our work. We know that we cannot accomplish our mission alone, and we are so grateful to meet like-minded organizations along our path.
Throughout all of this, our community has continued to grow and diversify. People from around the world have found their way into our orbit, via our events or our online community, AskNature Hive. They showed up to our Hive conversations and lit clubs and engaged with each other, creating new connections and community. We had our largest ever interest in joining our amazing Ray of Hope Accelerator cohort and we have expanded our Ask Nature collection to include bioregional content. We also went on the road to major global events such as New York and London Climate Weeks and engaged the Bioneers audience once more with Janine’s powerful keynote.
As we turn toward 2026, I feel both gratitude and anticipation. With political turmoil and the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss feeling ever more challenging, we can still turn to nature for hope. I look forward to walking into the next year with you, guided as always by nature’s wisdom and by the shared hope that a world where humans and nature are supporting each other to thrive is not only possible but already emerging.
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