How Do Startup Address the World’s Most Pressing Problems? The Case for Planetary Resource Overshoot

This is the fourth piece in our Pressing Problems series where we objectively rank global issues according to the ITN (Importance, Tractability, Neglect) framework to find out where we should be focusing our limited time and resources. In this article, we’ll explore why overuse of Earth's resources is one of the most pressing issues today, and what we as VCs can do about it.

Author: Gavin Chen

What is the Problem?

Each year, humans consume more from nature than the planet can regenerate. In 2024, Earth Overshoot Day, the date we exceed the year's ecological budget, fell on August 1 (Global Footprint Network). From that point forward, every ton of carbon emitted, forest cleared, and liter of water extracted becomes a debt passed on to future generations.

The overshoot spans four critical systems:

• Energy: Over 70% of global electricity is still generated from fossil fuels, driving climate instability (IEA).
• Forests: We lose 10 million hectares annually, eroding biodiversity and carbon storage (FAO).
• Soil: 75% of land is already degraded, threatening food and ecosystem stability (UNCCD).
• Water: Global demand will outstrip sustainable supply by 40% by 2030 (World Resources Institute).

These pressures cost the global economy an estimated $2 to $4 trillion each year in lost ecosystem services (OECD). They hit rural communities in the Global South the hardest and destabilize advanced economies through volatile supply chains and resource-driven conflict.

Many solutions already exist: decentralized renewable grids, large-scale restoration, regenerative agriculture, and closed-loop water systems. Yet they remain underfunded. Especially capital-intensive projects that venture capital often overlooks. Without investment at scale, planetary boundaries may be pushed beyond safe limits for both human prosperity and ecological resilience.

Why Does This Matter to VCs?

For venture capital, planetary resource overshoot is not just an environmental concern; it is a structural market risk and one of the largest investment opportunities of our time.

The costs of degraded ecosystems, volatile resource supply, and climate-driven disruptions already measure in the trillions annually (OECD). These shocks affect every sector, from energy and agriculture to manufacturing and finance. Companies everywhere, whether a consumer brand in the U.S. or a logistics provider in Africa, face higher input costs, unstable supply chains, and tightening regulations around resource efficiency.

From an ITN framework perspective, the opportunity scores high:

• Importance: Solutions address fundamental human needs—energy, water, food, and materials security—impacting billions of people.
• Tractability: Proven technologies such as decentralized renewable grids, large-scale restoration, regenerative farming, and circular water systems already exist, and many are commercially viable today.
• Neglectedness: Infrastructure-heavy climate solutions remain underfunded, with most VC dollars concentrated in software or lighter infrastructure. This leaves a significant gap where private capital can accelerate deployment at scale.

Backing ventures in this space is not philanthropy. It is investing in the next generation of infrastructure and resource systems that will underpin global stability and growth. The founders building here are tackling markets worth trillions in long-term value, but they often lack access to investors willing to take early, high-conviction positions in capital-intensive innovations.

How Might a Resource-Balanced Future Look?

A future that stays within the planet’s ecological limits will require rewiring the systems that power our economies, feed our populations, and restore the natural capital we have been depleting for decades. The companies building this future are not making marginal improvements; they are rethinking core infrastructure for energy, agriculture, and ecological restoration.

Draper Associates backs founders who see these challenges as massive opportunities: markets worth trillions, customer bases in the billions, and the chance to design the resource systems of the future from the ground up. We spoke with three of our portfolio companies (Husk Power Systems, Lord of the Trees, and VVater) to understand how they envision a world where resource use stays within planetary boundaries, and what is still needed to get there.

Founder Visions: Portfolio Case Studies

Husk Power Systems — Manoj Sinha

When Manoj Sinha co-founded Husk Power Systems in 2008, the idea of using renewable mini-grids to power rural communities was almost unheard of. Growing up in Bihar, India, he saw firsthand how a lack of electricity stifled opportunity. His own cousins had none, while he had a few hours a day.

Husk Power builds decentralized renewable mini-grids that combine solar PV, biomass gasification, and battery storage to deliver 24/7 clean electricity. Today, the company operates more than 400 grids in India and Nigeria, providing about 95% renewable energy to communities that previously relied on kerosene or diesel. With its “mini-grid-in-a-box” model, a fully operational system can be deployed in less than 24 hours.

The results are immediate. “When we provide utility-like electricity, [local businesses] switch to automation… productivity increases 10x,” Sinha says. Carpentry shops, small factories, and farms produce more, earn more, and become more resilient to climate shocks.

Husk’s ambition is bold: scale to 5,000 mini-grids by 2030, reaching more than 100 million people in the Global South. For Sinha, it is both an economic opportunity and a moral imperative to prove that clean, distributed power can leapfrog fossil systems and unlock prosperity for billions.

Lord of the Trees — Aymeric Maudous

Aymeric Maudous founded Lord of the Trees to reforest degraded land at a scale and speed traditional methods cannot match. The company uses drones and precision planting to restore biodiversity in areas devastated by deforestation, wildfires, and land degradation.

The approach is rapid and data-driven. Each drone can plant tens of thousands of seed pods per day, customized for local soil and climate conditions. This enables large-scale reforestation that is cost-effective, scalable, and measurable. That matters in a world losing the equivalent of 27 soccer fields of forest every minute.

Maudous sees reforestation not just as environmental repair, but as economic renewal. Healthy forests mean cleaner air and water, improved soil quality, and new income streams for rural and Indigenous communities. As he puts it, restoring nature “isn’t just about planting trees; it’s about bringing an ecosystem back to life.”

Lord of the Trees is already working in regions from Australia to the Middle East, showing that technology paired with ecological expertise can reverse decades of environmental damage at real speed.

VVater — Kevin Gast

VVater (formerly GAST Clearwater), founded in 2022 and headquartered in Austin, has reinvented water treatment with chemical-free, membrane-free, energy-efficient technology. The flagship product, the Farady Reactor, uses a proprietary Advanced Low-Tension Electroporation (ALTEP) process to purify water with low-voltage electrical pulses. This destroys PFAS, microplastics, pathogens, and other hard-to-remove contaminants without filters, chemicals, or membranes.

The Farady Reactor is compact and modular, so it can be deployed across many use cases, from municipal and industrial facilities to emergency response. It reduces operating costs by about 60% and uses roughly 43% less energy than traditional methods.

VVater’s business model is also innovative. Through a Water-as-a-Service (WaaS) approach, clients pay per use instead of large upfront costs, which speeds adoption and lowers financial barriers. In 2025, the technology won the CES Best of Innovation Award for sustainability and tech-enabled impact.

According to CEO Kevin Gast, “We’re not tweaking old systems. We’re building new foundations for a water-secure future.”

VVater is emerging as a transformative force in the water sector, enabling circular water use across industries, from agriculture and wastewater to municipal and residential, and reshaping what clean water infrastructure looks like in the 21st century.

The Biggest Barriers to Scaling Solutions

The technology to address planetary resource overshoot exists today, but moving from pilots to global scale faces serious challenges. Founders across energy, reforestation, and water solutions pointed to three main barriers:

1. Willingness to fund infrastructure-heavy bets: Breakthroughs like rural electrification, large-scale water treatment, and drone reforestation often become essential systems. Yet these ventures require far more upfront capital than software startups, and many VCs hesitate.
2. Policy and regulatory lag: Regulation often trails innovation, especially in markets where overshoot is most acute. From mini-grids in Africa to drone planting, outdated frameworks make it hard to integrate new systems with existing infrastructure.
3. Talent gaps in emerging markets: Scaling requires skilled operators, engineers, and technicians in local communities. Many emerging markets lack deep technical talent pipelines, so companies must train staff extensively before deployment. This adds cost and time but remains unavoidable.

The tech works, and demand is strong. Unless capital gets bolder, policy gets smarter, and talent pipelines grow, solutions to planetary resource overshoot will remain smaller than the crisis demands.

Where VCs Can Move the Needle Now

Entrepreneurs in this space are not short on ideas. What they lack is the capital, risk tolerance, and cross-sector commitment to scale proven solutions quickly. Here is where VCs can act with conviction:

• Decentralized renewable grids: Modular solar-biomass-storage platforms that deliver “grid-in-a-box” power for fast-growing rural and peri-urban markets.
• Next-generation water treatment: Electroporation, plasma, and nano-catalyst reactors that destroy PFAS, pathogens, and microplastics, offered through Water-as-a-Service models.
• Autonomous reforestation systems: Drone swarms integrated with seed biology and soil data, paired with carbon and biodiversity MRV software for verification at scale.
• Microbial soil health platforms: Proprietary microbial consortia and soil amendments bundled with yield- and carbon-tracking dashboards for farmers and agribusiness.
• Radiative and passive cooling materials: High-albedo coatings, membranes, and composites that cut cooling loads in cities and industry without additional energy demand.
• Circular biomaterials: Mycelium, algae, and ag-residue composites for high-value niches such as insulation panels, acoustic tiles, packaging, and medical biopolymers.
• Synthetic biology for bioremediation: Engineered microbes and enzymes that clean industrial wastewater, landfill leachate, or mining tailings in contained environments.

Each year of overshoot leaves humanity deeper in ecological debt. But unlike many crises, this one comes with enormous upside. The markets for decentralized renewable power, circular water systems, and large-scale ecosystem restoration are already forming.

The question is no longer whether these markets will exist. It is who will have the conviction to fund them now, while there is still time to build a future where humanity lives within planetary boundaries.

Also Read:

How Can VCs Identify the Most Pressing Problems (and Biggest Opportunities) of Our Time?

How Do VCs Address the World's Most Pressing Problems? The Case for Reactive Healthcare

How Do VCs Address the World's Most Pressing Problems? The Case for Future-Proofing Education