Well, that is the conclusion that I have had to come to terms with as well Frank. And I'm not even anyone who is funded yet. But if I want to continue to be able to do nice and interesting projects that help animals I'm absolutely going to have to make it profitable or I will not be able to. This mindset change happened to me last year. But I think it's right on the money. I have built some interesting tech but to get the maxium result out of it I'm going to also have to make it scale and get the interest of the far greater population of more ordinary people as well. Only then will it be truely sustainable.

This is why with my products I'm wanting to solve multiple problems in the same box. If I build a device that can help with biodiversity projects, it's also nice if ordinary people can use it to re-discover the wildlife in their backyards and additionally protect their homes with the security system side of things. That way it will reach enough of a mass market to become sustainable and the results of that I will be able to feed back into wildlife projects and do some fun things.

I support the idea that profit should be part of conservation. I have seen from experience how funded initiatives do so well during the project life span, but the moment funding streams dry up, so do conservation efforts, especially for marginalised communities. Like what Frank Said if large investments are made into harming nature, to reverse the effects some funding is also required to support recovery efforts and build local communities' resilience. 

This is a fun thought experiment! As a second generation owner of a for-profit wildlife technology company, my entire life has been built on the proceeds of profit from selling wildlife technology. 

First, I think it is imperative that humanity places real value on wildlife, ecosystems, and wild places. This initial value is not necessarily commercial in-nature but it is required to cause the financial imperative to spend money on conservation. For example, environmental regulations in themselves are typically not-profit centered but presumably conditions placed on economic activities from government through demand of their constituents. This regulation then requires a business to spend money on conservation. 

For the next logical part - the idea that profit is not necessarily bad. I would argue that an ontological investigation on moral imperative of profit incentive is not relevant to current practical conservation efforts. Profit to me is neither bad nor good but a component of our existing largely global system of commoditizing human effort. A marxist critique for example would say that capitalism is a driver of environmental destruction, but that doesn't change the fact that we currently live in a monetized system and need to pay people to do conservation work. I am more interested in practical steps now than possible system changes. 

So digging deeper into our own world here - wildlife technology - is profit required? Yes it is. It is not the only model and should coexist with others, but it is one important component of stable and functional wildlife technology ecosystem. So why is profit from wildlife technology necessary? In no particular order:

- Paying a fair wage. We should accept the reality that every single person who works in the wildlife field at any capacity is already working at a substantial discount compared to more profitable industries. Most wildlife technology overlaps with defense applications. Some of the products I sell go for 5 - 10x the price in defense applications for nearly identical items. 

- The hell of regulatory capitalism. Wildlife cross borders but we live in a nation-state system, with each state having their own unique laws and regulations. Operating and supplying products at scale introduces serious regulatory burden, some of which is logical and necessary and some less so. Wildlife is a tiny industry and so the takes up a larger % of time and revenue than for very large corporations. I spend at least 30% of my own time making sure our company doesn't accidently break some law. Conversely, one of my major issues with non-profit orientated organizations in this space is that they frequently do not consider this and will promote or create technology that could never be used at scale due to regulatory reasons. 

- User requirements. Certain users of wildlife technology and not particularly easy to get products to. Government and industry for example have substantial vendor requirements and often pay on Net 30 terms at the earliest. It takes time (and therefore cash) to service these requirements.

- Profit as a source of development. Many users of wildlife technology have no alturistic interest in conservation. They have a problem that costs them money and they will happily buy ready-made solutions at a price that allows a supplier to profit. This funding source then feeds back into the R&D loop to create better and newer conservation technology. These same customers would not donate a cent to conservation voluntarily but profit derived from their sales funds conservation. 

- Tail risk and long-term stability. The stability of a wildlife technology developer/provider is exposed to tail risk at any model. An important shipment can get lost, a building burn down, a supply chain lost, a critical funder ceases to exist, or prescient to today a new tariff regime comes into place. For-profit models create the imperative to always be accounting for and planning for tail risk as well as the war-chest to continue operations when systems change.

- Motivation and efficiency. Without getting too Milton Friendman-y here, the requirements of operating as a for-profit entity are serious. Our development work must be targeted, we must account for items like manufacturability and distribution right from the outset because we cannot waste scarce resources on impractical solutions.  Further to that, there is no greater motivator than survival. There are times in my career where failure simply was not an option and so I found a way to continue on. There have been entire years which were an exercise in pain tolerance and if I had an alternative I would have taken it. 


I think of wildlife technoligy as its own ecosystem and energy flows. This ecosystem has space in it for multiple models and each one has certain advantages and weaknesses. A stable ecoystem has a diversity of entities in it. For-profit organizations have made a place for themselves and will remain one of the key models necessary to push conservation technology forward. 
 

Very interested in this topic, i can definitely see how funding based on philanthropy can be vulnerable and unsustainable. I find it hard to think of many business models that directly contribute to conservation and are profitable without philanthropic funding sources. Maybe things aimed at wildlife enthusiasts and hobbyists such as plant and animal id apps? Do any of you have more examples?