Environmental Business Journal Q3 2022: Ecobot Works to Digitalize Environmental Project Workflow

The following Q&A is excerpted from Environmental Business Journal Q3 2022: Environmental Consulting & Engineering Industry.

Ecobot builds revolutionary software that improves how we interact with the environment. Ecobot is the future of environmental monitoring, reporting, and data forecasting, providing efficiency across all sectors of the environmental services industry. The first version of Ecobot provides a swifter way to input wetland field data, provides contextual vegetation and soil data lookups, automatically generates USACE wetland delineation reports, and provides relevant mitigation banking and monitoring data.?

Lee Lance co-founded Ecobot in 2018 with environmental consultant Jeremy Schewe, PWS, and engineer Emmet McGovern, connecting a trifecta of decades-long scientific, engineering, and strategic business experience.?

EBJ: You describe the company as the ‘construction software company driving the digitization of pre-construction environmental permitting’. How has this description evolved in your history and how has your business model evolved along with it?

Lee Lance: The AEC industry as a whole demands better data to make more resilient decisions about the built environment, in a way that it didn’t just a handful of years ago. When we started Ecobot, we saw a clear opportunity to digitize a halfcentury-old paper-driven workflow. As we engaged with more customers in the AEC industry who were working on larger infrastructure-scale projects, we gained a deeper understanding of how environmental permitting data can be used to influence the rest of the construction cycle.

EBJ: Congratulations on integrating mitigation banking. How do you view how the mitigation banking business itself has emerged and evolved over the last decade or more?

Lance: Mitigation banking has grown out of a broader recognition of the important functions of natural resources that impact our present and future while enabling economic progress. The industry itself is a unique example of a good balance between regulatory policy and the regulated community. The combination of regulatory oversight and the open, private economic marketplace constitutes a truly sustainable solution.

As ESG promises have become ubiquitous, consultants and their clients alike are looking for ways to demonstrate practical implementation of management promises. The role of mitigation banking in real estate and infrastructure development will continue to gain broader support as we all work toward resilience in the face of the impacts of climate change.

EBJ: Many view mitigation banking as being limited to a specific watershed or relatively defined geographic area. Is this a fair assumption, or how much state or regional variation is there in mitigation assets?

Lance: Part of what makes mitigation banking valuable is that conservation, including restoration, enhancement, and preservation of important resources, takes place within the same area of impact as the site of development. “Limited” is the wrong connotation––it’s actually quite the opposite. Mitigation banking is an opportunity to ensure that economic progress within a watershed has as close as possible to a zero net impact at the watershed level.?

EBJ: Do Ecobot and your partners in the business help broaden the potential pool of assets that can be brought forth to offset new projects?

Lance: Ecobot integrates multidimensional data from the field with publicly available sources that our customers need to make better decisions for their clients. Better information helps bankers and consultants support the regulated community in a more impactful way

EBJ: Do you see the environmental consulting community as a partner?

Lance: Definitely. Ecobot has and will continue to rapidly evolve based on input from our customers, who have generated over 70,000 reports, affording us a unique perspective and approach to the AEC industry. Ecobot’s cofounder Jeremy Schewe brings 20 years of pre-construction permitting and consulting experience, and our product manager formerly served as a field scientist and project manager at one of the largest players in the mitigation banking industry.

EBJ: How have you grown the business? Do you have investor or university partners?

Lance: Ecobot is a venture-backed company with institutional investors who bring broad experience across B2B SaaS (Software as a Service). We’ve raised over $3 million from investors including Cultivation Capital, Runway Venture Partners, Shadow Ventures, SaaS Ventures, Charlotte Angel Fund, and Stout Street Capital.

Our venture backing enables Ecobot’s ongoing evolution as we work to realize our broader vision and continue delivering an excellent product that helps our customers better serve their clients.

EBJ: How do you view the potential of carbon fixation assets or carbon banks in the form of natural ecosystems or forestry preservation or restoration in terms of their contribution to a mitigation approach to climate stability?

Lance: A great question. We have exciting times ahead of us as we all work together to build a more sustainable future.?