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E-06

Regenerate the global topsoil

Healthy, living topsoil on the world’s farms and grasslands, building up faster than it’s lost.

3 organizations tracked  ·  0 vetted

The goal in brief

GoalHealthy, living topsoil on the world’s farms and grasslands, building up faster than it’s lost.

of the world’s soils are degraded1
33%
of healthy land degraded each year2
100 million ha
of soil eroded by water in 20123
35.9 billion t

Why it matters

About 95% of our food comes from soil, yet a third of the world’s soils are already degraded.1 Between 2015 and 2019 the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy, productive land every year.2

How we’ll know it’s done

Finish line
A land degradation-neutral world, the SDG 15.3 target for 2030, which means halting new damage and restoring at least 1 billion hectares of degraded land.2
What counts
Soil that’s measurably healthier: more organic matter, less erosion, and land that holds water and grows food again.
How it’s checked
Soil sampling for organic carbon, plus satellite maps of degraded land that countries report under the SDGs.
Our part
We’ll fund this once our vetting team vets an organization working on it.

What follows

  • Bigger, steadier harvests from the same land.H-01Eliminate global hunger and malnutrition
  • Carbon pulled from the air and stored in the ground.E-08Establish global climate equilibrium
  • Soil that soaks up rain and refills wells and streams.H-03Establish universal access to clean drinking water
  • Farms that support more life above and below ground.E-03Establish biodiverse, regenerative agricultural systems

How it can be solved

The approaches to this goal, and how many of the organizations taking each one we’ve vetted.

  • Composting

    Composting at home and with neighbors, turning food scraps back into soil.

    2 organizations

  • Biochar in soil

    Biochar growing media that hold water and lock carbon into soil.

    1 organization

Who’s working on it

We only call a solution proven, measurable and scalable once our vetting team has vetted it. Everything else here, the team is tracking.

Vetted0 organizationsReviewed by our vetting team, and passed all three tests.

  • Proven

    It has worked, with results to show.

  • Measurable

    Its impact can be counted.

  • Scalable

    It can grow toward the size of the goal.

None on this goal yet. When our vetting team vets an organization working on it, it appears here with its vetting report.

Not vetted3 organizationsTracked by our vetting team. Not vetted yet, so we make no claims about them.

Listing an organization isn’t an endorsement. Not vetted means just that: our vetting team is tracking it, and we make no claims about it yet. Last reviewed October 2026.

Know a solution we’re missing?

Submit a solution that tackles a goal on Humanity’s Checklist.

  1. Tell us about it in a short form.
  2. Our Solutionary Team reviews every submission.
  3. If it looks like a fit, we’ll start vetting the project.
Submit a project (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. 1. FAO, “World Soil Day” (2025) (opens in a new tab)
  2. 2. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Goal 15,” SDG targets and progress, from The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023 (opens in a new tab)
  3. 3. Borrelli et al., “An assessment of the global impact of 21st century land use change on soil erosion,” Nature Communications (2017) (opens in a new tab)