The 2025 Climate-Tech Outlook Through David Friedberg's Lens: Fertility, Crops, Carbon, and Beyond

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David Friedberg has a way of cutting through the noise in climate tech, and in 2025 his lens helps answer the question every founder and investor asks: What actually works, and what will scale.

I wrote this guide to give you a practical, first-principles view of climate tech in 2025 through the themes Friedberg hammers on most often.

You will see how fertility, crops, carbon markets, and biological innovation come together, and how I translate that into investment themes we work with at Capitaly.vc.

By the end, you will have a clear playbook for where to build, where to invest, and how to tell if a climate-tech idea is real or hype.

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1) Why David Friedberg’s framework matters in climate tech 2025

I respect David Friedberg because he focuses on unit economics, adoption behavior, and system constraints, not headlines.

He helped build The Climate Corporation and now leads The Production Board, so he sees both lab reality and field reality.

In 2025, I think his framework helps you ask three blunt questions.

• Can you deliver a provable, near-term ROI to the buyer.
• Can you scale without hitting a hidden bottleneck like interconnect queues, regulatory friction, or farmer workflow.
• Can you survive commodity cycles by stacking margins, not just chasing subsidies.

Those questions keep companies honest in a year when capital is selective and diligence is tighter.

They also map to what I see across climate and ag: the winners create real cash savings or new revenue in months, not years.

2) Fertility in two senses: human demographics and soil fertility

Friedberg talks about fertility in a dual context, and both matter to climate tech.

Human fertility rates are falling across developed economies, which means labor scarcity and slower baseline demand growth in certain categories.

Soil fertility is under pressure from nutrient depletion, water stress, and weather volatility.

Here is how I think about it.

• Human fertility declines push ag toward automation, autonomy, and decision support.
• Soil fertility pressure pushes inputs toward biologically informed solutions, precise placement, and data-driven management.
• Both trends reward technologies that do more with fewer hours, fewer passes, and fewer pounds per acre.

When I meet founders, I ask how their product performs in a labor-tight world and a nutrient-tight soil system.

3) Crop science breakthroughs that matter now

There is a lot of noise in crop science, so I watch three areas that actually move yield or resilience in 2025.

• Gene-edited traits for stress tolerance. Drought and heat tolerance with CRISPR is going from lab talk to field trials with measurable gains.
• Microbial consortia for nutrient use efficiency. One bug rarely works everywhere, but smart consortia tuned to local soils can move the needle.
• In-season digital phenotyping. Low-cost sensors and high-res imagery that guide mid-season decisions can add bushels without new chemistry.

My filter is simple.

If the grower cannot see and feel a difference within a season, it is not ready for prime time.

4) Carbon markets: what passes the smell test in 2025

David Friedberg has called out the soft spots in carbon markets, and I agree.

The path forward is tighter MRV, clearer additionality, and business models that do not rely on soft credits.

Here is how I underwrite carbon in 2025.

• MRV first. If measurement, reporting, and verification is not credible and cost-effective, I pass.
• Additionality and permanence. I need strong baselines, conservative modeling, and buffers that survive legal and weather risk.
• Co-benefits that farmers will pay for. Soil structure, water retention, and yield stability are the value engine, and carbon is the bonus.

Biochar and enhanced rock weathering are getting interesting because MRV is improving and co-benefits can be local and durable.

But volume buyers still want certainty, which rewards projects with transparent data and reputable registries.

5) The MRV stack: satellites, soil cores, and models that agree

Every credible carbon or soil-health claim rests on measurement that holds up to audit.

In 2025, the MRV stack looks like this.

• Remote sensing. Multispectral and radar imagery to detect cover crops, tillage, and biomass.
• In-field sampling. Targeted soil cores with calibrated lab analysis for SOC and mineral N.
• Process-based models. Calibrated with weather, management, and soil data to interpolate between samples.

The trick is harmonization.

If the satellite says one thing, the model another, and the cores a third, you lose trust and margin.

I back teams that build integrated pipelines with clear uncertainty bounds and automated QA.

6) Fertilizer decarbonization: green ammonia, N2O, and the last mile

Traditional Haber-Bosch is energy heavy, and nitrous oxide emissions on farms are a big greenhouse problem.

In 2025 the action splits into three buckets.

• Upstream ammonia. Green ammonia via electrolysis and renewable power is scaling, but off-take must compete on delivered cost, not just green premiums.
• On-farm nitrogen efficiency. Nitrification inhibitors, polymer coatings, and smart timing cut N2O and save money.
• Biological nitrogen. Associative nitrogen fixation and engineered microbes show promise, but consistency across soils is the unlock.

The last mile matters most.

If logistics and application windows do not match farm realities, green molecules will sit in tanks instead of fields.

7) Biologicals vs synthetics: the false debate

I do not view biologicals as a replacement for synthetics.

I view them as tools that can extend or amplify performance when placed precisely.

Here is the pattern I see in the field.

• Biologicals work best when they are part of a program, not a silver bullet.
• They need clear conditions of use, like temperature bands, soil pH, and moisture thresholds.
• They win when bundled with advisory tools and ROI tracking.

Friedberg’s bias toward data is the right one here.

Show the curve, not the claim.

8) Seeds for a hotter, drier decade

Breeding cycles are long, but extreme weather compresses patience.

I see three investable angles.

• Stacked abiotic traits. Drought, heat, and salinity stacked together perform better than single traits in the real world.
• Shorter maturity windows. Faster-to-harvest varieties reduce risk from late-season heat or storms.
• Local adaptation networks. Distributed trial networks with high-frequency data cut the time to regional recommendations.

The winners pair genetics with decision support so the seed choice lines up with management and forecasted stress.

9) Controlled environment agriculture: profitability, not just yield

CEA had a hype cycle, then a reckoning.

The survivors in 2025 share three traits.

• Energy arbitrage. They site facilities where power is cheap and reliable, or they contract storage to shave peaks.
• Crop selection discipline. Leafy greens can work, but high-margin niche crops with consistent demand can work better.
• Retail integration. Long-term offtake and private-label partnerships stabilize cash flow.

I do not back glass boxes chasing commodity lettuce without a power edge and a retail plan.

10) Water intelligence: irrigation, salinity, and allocation risk

Water is the hidden balance sheet in agriculture.

In 2025, practical water tech looks like this.

• Sensor-driven irrigation. Soil moisture probes and weather-informed automation cut water and energy bills with quick payback.
• Salinity management. Root-zone monitoring and amendments prevent yield collapse in drought-prone areas.
• Allocation forecasting. Tools that simulate policy and snowpack help growers plan planting and financing.

Make water a line-item ROI story, and adoption follows.

11) Farm fintech: cash flow, risk, and carbon-aligned finance

Farmers adopt when the cash pencil works.

Financial tools that align with sustainable practices are picking up steam.

• Input financing tied to outcomes. Lower rates if soil health metrics improve or if nitrogen use declines.
• Parametric covers. Quick payouts on weather triggers smooth revenue without long claims cycles.
• Inventory-backed credit. Better working capital against stored grain with transparent pricing data.

When your product reduces risk and secures cheaper capital, you win share fast.

For more on fundraising readiness and investor communication in climate tech, see our blog resources: Capitaly.vc blog.

12) Robotics and autonomy: the labor gap solution that pencils

Labor scarcity meets steady advances in machine vision and navigation.

Here is where I see traction.

• High-value specialty crops. Harvest and weeding autonomy in orchards and vineyards where labor costs are high.
• Row-crop spot spray. Camera-guided sprayers that cut chemical spend 40 to 70 percent.
• Modular retrofits. Kits that upgrade existing machines beat full replacements in today’s capex climate.

Make the payback period 18 months or less, and adoption takes off.

13) Traceability and low-carbon supply chains

Downstream buyers are under scope 3 pressure, and they need reliable data from farms.

The practical winners focus on procurement-grade traceability, not social feeds.

• Batch-level provenance. Link field practices to lots with tamper-evident data.
• Interoperability. APIs into ERPs, elevators, and processors, not walled gardens.
• Incentive alignment. Premiums or priority contracts for verified low-carbon grain.

Traceability is not a story tool.

It is a procurement tool.

14) Food waste tech: cold chain, dynamic pricing, and byproduct valorization

Food waste is a quiet emissions giant and a margin leak.

Three areas show near-term ROI.

• Cold chain visibility. Sensor tags and predictive models that reduce spoilage by a few points pay for themselves.
• Dynamic pricing and routing. AI that reroutes near-expiry inventory to the right buyer reduces write-offs.
• Byproduct valorization. Turning peel, pulp, and whey into feed or ingredients adds a new revenue stream.

Waste reduction is climate action that CFOs cheer.

15) Bio-based materials and circular chemistry

Fossil-to-bio substitution is real when it matches performance and cost.

I look for three proof points.

• Drop-in compatibility. Minimal retooling for converters and existing lines.
• Stable feedstock contracts. Farmers and processors want multi-year deals at predictable prices.
• Clear end-of-life. Compostable, recyclable, or truly durable with low microplastics risk.

When you hit those marks, CPGs and industrial buyers lean in.

16) Energy on the farm: electrification, storage, and microgrids

Electrification is only as good as the power you can access when you need it.

Interconnect queues are slow, so farms are turning to behind-the-meter solutions.

• Solar plus storage with load control. Irrigation pumps and cold storage respond well to smart scheduling.
• Diesel displacement. Electric or hybrid drive lines for short-run equipment can cut fuel bills meaningfully.
• Thermal storage. Pre-cooling and phase-change materials flatten energy spikes.

I ask founders how they navigate utility timelines and whether their savings survive a real tariff schedule.

17) Insurance, resilience, and parametric innovation

Weather volatility is here, and waiting for indemnity checks is costly.

Parametric products, when designed carefully, change the game.

• Clear perils. Heat, drought, hail, and wind with well-defined local triggers.
• Fast payouts. Days, not months, reduce working-capital stress.
• Bundled with agronomy. Tie coverage to practices that lower risk, like cover crops or optimized planting windows.

The best products are boring in a good way because they are predictable and transparent.

18) Policy tailwinds and compliance realities

Subsidies can help, but they should not define your business.

In 2025, I treat policy as an accelerant, not a foundation.

• Grid incentives. Useful for distributed storage and interconnection upgrades but still slow.
• Conservation and soil programs. Helpful to de-risk practice change for growers.
• Fuel and fertilizer rules. These can reshape cost curves and procurement requirements.

Build your core model to stand without policy, then lean on incentives to scale faster.

19) Investment themes I am backing in climate tech 2025

This is where Friedberg’s lens meets my checkbook.

• ROI-positive soil health. Tools that increase nutrient efficiency, water retention, and yield stability with measurable outcomes.
• Carbon with credible MRV. Biochar, ERW, and agroforestry stacks where data quality is audit-grade.
• Biology plus software. Microbial or enzyme products bundled with decision support and performance guarantees.
• On-farm energy optimization. Storage-controlled loads and tariff-aware controls that save money day one.
• Automation in specialty and high-input systems. Robotics and vision that cut labor or chemical costs with clear payback.

I avoid models that depend on soft credits, heroic adoption assumptions, or unproven field performance.

For more thoughts on investor fit and capital stacking, see our resources here: Capitaly.vc blog.

20) The founder playbook for raising climate capital in 2025

Here is the simple, direct approach I recommend.

• Prove unit economics locally. Show a paying customer with cash savings in under one season or one billing cycle.
• Instrument everything. Use sensors and software to show before-and-after data tied to dollars saved or earned.
• Design for deployment. Make installation and training take hours, not weeks, and build remote support into the product.
• Pre-negotiate supply and distribution. Lock in the hard stuff early, including manufacturing capacity and channel incentives.
• Tell the truth about risk. Be upfront about edge cases and failure rates, and show your plan to reduce them.

Capital flows to teams that respect their customer’s time and cash.

That is the spirit of Friedberg’s no-nonsense approach, and it works.

How I apply Friedberg’s “adoption math” in diligence

I use a quick adoption model when I evaluate a climate tech deal.

• Time to cash impact. If it takes over one season or one fiscal quarter to show savings, I haircut adoption by half.
• Hands on wheel. If it adds steps to a grower’s routine without removing steps elsewhere, adoption slows.
• Trust proxy. If you need a novel data claim to prove ROI, I assume extra sales friction and longer cycles.

This is not pessimism.

It is respect for how hard farming and industrial operations really are.

Soil health as a balance sheet strategy

Soil health is not a bumper sticker.

It is a multi-year strategy that changes the cash profile of a farm.

Here is how it pays back.

• Yield stability. Fewer extreme downsides in bad years matter more than small gains in good years.
• Input efficiency. Better structure and biology stretch fertilizer and water further.
• Market access. Low-carbon and regenerative premiums are small today, but access to contracts is valuable.

Frame soil health as risk-adjusted EBITDA, and you will win CFOs and lenders.

Carbon markets beyond offsets: insets and procurement-grade claims

Offsets got the headlines, but insets and supplier programs are building durable demand.

Here is the shift I see.

• Inset programs. Food companies invest in supplier practices they can count in scope 3.
• Procurement-grade reporting. Less marketing, more audit trails and internal carbon pricing.
• Multi-attribute claims. Carbon, water, and biodiversity bundled into one supplier score.

This moves carbon from a side hustle to a procurement requirement.

Precision fermentation and the ingredient stack

Friedberg has championed precision fermentation as a path to scalable, sustainable ingredients.

In 2025, the bar is higher on cost and capacity.

• Strain plus process. Elevating titer, rate, and yield is necessary but not sufficient without cheap feedstocks and efficient downstream.
• Ingredient focus. Functional proteins, enzymes, and specialty fats with clear performance and price parity get traction.
• Co-location and heat integration. Pairing with low-cost energy and using waste heat can tip unit economics.

I look for plants that run near existing logistics hubs and contract manufacturing that can scale without nine-figure capex too early.

Data platforms that do not drown the grower

Growers are drowning in dashboards.

The only data platforms I back do three things.

• Automate data capture. Flow machine, satellite, and sensor data without manual entry.
• Make one decision easier. Reduce nitrogen by 10 percent or move irrigation timing, not 20 charts.
• Tie to cash. Connect to invoices, insurance, or premiums so the money shows up.

If your app does not save time or money this week, it will not last.

Hardware realities: reliability, service, and channel

Hardware in ag is about uptime, not features.

Here is my checklist.

• Mean time between failure. Show field-tested reliability in dust, heat, and vibration.
• Serviceability. Parts in days, not weeks, and remote diagnostics that actually work.
• Channel incentives. Dealers need to make money on sales and service, or they will not push your product.

The best hardware companies look like service companies with a great product attached.

Go-to-market in ag innovation: earn the acre

Ag innovation fails when go-to-market ignores trust.

You earn the acre by starting small and delivering.

• Season one. Field trials with advisory partners and brutally honest reporting.
• Season two. Paid pilots with guarantees tied to measurable outcomes.
• Season three. Scale through channel partners with case studies and references.

It is slower than software, but the result is durable adoption.

For practical insights on capital efficiency and scaling cadence, explore our posts here: Capitaly.vc blog.

Exit pathways and valuation discipline

In 2025, valuation discipline is back, and that is healthy.

Here is how I think about exit paths.

• Strategic acquisitions. Seed, chemical, equipment, and food majors buy solutions that fit their sales motion.
• Infra and project finance. Carbon, biochar, and distributed energy scale with long-term contracts and infrastructure capital.
• Public markets. Rare, but possible when gross margins and growth are both real and repeatable.

Build optionality by focusing on profitable growth and clear strategic fit.

Founder mindset: practical optimism with a field notebook

Friedberg’s superpower is a mix of optimism and empirical rigor.

I try to channel that mindset with a simple ritual.

• Talk to users weekly. Ask what broke, what saved time, and what they would pay for immediately.
• Write the field notes. Keep a running log of conditions, results, and anomalies.
• Ship the fix. Release small, useful improvements continuously.

That is how you compound trust and create a product the market pulls.

FAQs

What does David Friedberg emphasize most for climate tech in 2025.

He emphasizes unit economics, credible data, and solving real constraints like labor, energy, and logistics.

Where are the biggest near-term wins in ag innovation.

Soil health with measurable ROI, nitrogen efficiency, and automation that cuts labor or chemical costs.

Are carbon markets investable this year.

Yes, if MRV is audit-grade, additionality is clear, and co-benefits drive farmer adoption even without credit revenue.

How fast do growers adopt new technology.

They adopt in one to three seasons if payback is under 18 months and the product fits existing workflows.

What is a realistic MRV setup for soil carbon.

Combine remote sensing, targeted soil sampling, and calibrated process models with transparent uncertainty.

Do biologicals replace synthetic inputs.

No, they complement them when used under the right conditions with clear ROI tracking.

Is controlled environment agriculture still viable.

Yes, with cheap power, disciplined crop choices, and retail partnerships that stabilize demand.

How should founders pitch climate-tech investors.

Lead with field data, customer ROI, and how you remove steps or costs, then show how you scale supply and channel.

What de-risks a carbon project for buyers.

Transparent MRV, conservative baselines, credible buffers, and ongoing monitoring that survives audit.

How can I learn more about fundraising tactics in climate tech.

Browse the latest practical guides and case studies on the Capitaly.vc blog and subscribe to our Substack for deep dives.

Conclusion

Climate tech in 2025 rewards teams that do what David Friedberg advocates.

Solve real problems, measure results, and scale around constraints instead of wishing them away.

If you focus on soil health, crop science grounded in data, credible carbon markets, and practical automation, you will build a business that compounds.

At Capitaly.vc we back founders who can prove it on the acre, on the line, and on the balance sheet.

If that is you, reach out, and keep studying what works through David Friedberg’s lens in climate tech 2025.

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