2025 In Review: Technology
At the start of 2025, whether environmental data and technology mattered was not the question. The question was whether institutions had the capacity to use them– reliably, at scale, and in service of real outcomes for communities and the environment.
What surprised many of us was the speed at which long-standing, non-partisan environmental datasets and tools came under threat or were removed altogether. The focus shifted from how to prioritize data for decision-making and policy support to how to protect, restore, and sustain it.
Where data remained available or still in development, deeper questions surfaced: Do federal, state, local, and nonprofit institutions have the talent, skills, and organizational capacity to actually use it– amid political churn, agency reorganization, and erosion of the federal data workforce?
It was a year of new realities, which demanded honesty, clarity, and strong partnerships to navigate a changing landscape and keep progress moving despite setbacks.
Building Foundations
Across drinking water, wetlands, permitting, forests, environmental justice data, and more, our work in 2025 followed a consistent pattern. We identified gaps. Assessed constraints. Built and improved underlying systems. Delivered usable strategies and tools. Then stayed close to early adopters to learn what worked and what didn’t.
This reflects how we approach environmental technology: not as one-off products, but as public-interest infrastructure that must survive turnover and actually get used.
You can see this approach reflected throughout EPIC’s work this year. In the Water and Restoration team blogs, technology shows up not as a separate lane, but as connective tissue supporting policy design, improving implementation, and reducing friction for people doing the work on the ground. That integration is the point.
Environmental Data Continuity Under Pressure
One of the clearest examples of foundation-building in 2025 came through our work with Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP).
As federal datasets and tools were removed, degraded, or placed at risk, the challenge wasn’t just preservation. It was continuity. Advocates, researchers, and community organizations depend on these resources to make decisions and advocate for their needs. Losing them, even temporarily, creates real-world harm.
Working alongside volunteers, former federal staff, and partner organizations, EPIC helped coordinate the preservation and restoration of critical environmental datasets and screening and analysis tools. That work was informed by deep, recent federal experience on the team, including colleagues like Kameron Kerger, who previously served in senior environmental justice digital roles at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Digital Service. The goal wasn’t to recreate the past, but ensure people could keep doing their work without interruption, while also improving documentation, accessibility, and long-term stewardship.
By the end of 2025, PEDP-supported tools were again being used by environmental justice advocates, organizers, and researchers across the country – not as archival artifacts, but as living resources that continue to inform decisions about health, equity, and environmental risk. In the process, moving these tools outside federal ownership also created the space to rethink and improve them: addressing blind spots, incorporating community-based data, and expanding whose experiences are reflected in environmental decision-making.
From Pilot to National Scale: Drinking Water and Wetlands
In parallel, we worked with individual states to create visibility into data and systems that didn’t exist holistically in the first place.
The National Drinking Water Tool is a good example. What began as a state-level effort grew into a national data pipeline spanning all 50 states, with dozens of datasets and hundreds of variables integrated into a single system. Automated workflows now update the data continuously, improving accuracy over time.
What mattered most was how the data was used. Early adopters span different cohorts, ranging from Technical Assistance providers like Water Finance Exchange and Rural Community Assistance Partnership to academic institutions including UCLA, Stanford, and Duke University. These actors implemented the data in their own workflows to analyze utility performance, patterns in demographics, and investment needs in ways that weren’t previously possible. Their feedback continues to directly shape data and tool development.
A similar story unfolded with the Wetlands Impact Tracker. Expanded from a handful of states to nationwide coverage, the tool now supports watershed-scale and statewide analysis, incorporating both permit notices and finalized permits. Practitioners are using it to understand cumulative impacts, focus limited time where it matters most, and surface issues earlier in the process.
Collaboration as an Operating Model
None of this work happened in isolation.
Throughout 2025, the Technology team worked shoulder-to-shoulder with EPIC’s Water and Restoration teams, supporting outcomes-based conservation programs, advancing permitting reform with an eye on the technology landscape, improving tribal drinking water data, and strengthening restoration planning and implementation.
That same collaborative approach extended beyond EPIC, through partnerships with agencies, universities, nonprofits, and leading civic technologists. The common thread was trust– building systems people are willing to rely on, grounded in multiple perspectives and focused on long-term outcomes rather than short-term news cycles.
One of the clearest expressions of that approach was the launch of a redesigned– and newly urgent– EPIC idea: a digital service for the planet. In October, EPIC partnered with New America to launch the Digital Service for the Planet (DSP) pilot, a multidisciplinary cohort incubated within EPIC’s Technology team.
That work is informed by Fellows with deep federal and policy implementation experience, including Surabhi Shah, whose background spans environmental policy, federal innovation programs, and applied research focused on how institutions actually deliver results. DSP Fellows are focused on addressing critical data, technology, and capacity gaps at the intersection of environment and public health, including drinking water, wetlands, forests, and permitting systems.
Rather than treating these challenges as isolated technical problems, DSP is designed to pair hands-on delivery with policy insight and institutional learning - developing practical prototypes, strategies, and approaches that help lay the groundwork for a future where government can adapt, deliver, and steward ecosystems and communities at scale.
From Delivery to Adoption
Releasing a tool, publishing a dataset, or launching a pilot is only the beginning. Real impact comes from adoption– when people use these resources to make better decisions, improve outcomes, and serve communities more effectively.
This focus on adoption also shaped work beyond individual tools. In land management, we continued supporting Forest Service partners navigating major organizational change – centering skills development, data practices, and innovation capacity across large and shifting institutional structures. We also helped convene and facilitate new dialogue at forums like the 9th American Forest Congress and the Society of American Foresters.
That work is informed by team members with deep federal and field experience, including JR Washebeck, whose background spans on-the-ground land management and senior federal leadership in artificial intelligence strategy, governance, and workforce adoption at the U.S. Forest Service.
We began measuring and strengthening that capacity through new efforts like Innovation Indicators, advanced work on a skills taxonomy for the environmental workforce, and launched early work on environmental AI and a Digital Service for the Planet pilot. These efforts were grounded not in hype, but in practical, outcome-driven use cases that recognize the policy, planning, and hiring shifts required for government to adapt.
Looking Ahead
That’s where 2026 comes into focus. With foundations rebuilt and expanded, the work ahead is about refinement: improving the design for people-centric interfaces, deepening feedback loops, supporting cohorts of practitioners, and embedding best practices so adoption grows over time.
When we build or expand tools, it’s not for tool’s sake. It’s for community and ecological value. It’s felt in communities, reflected in environmental outcomes, and sustained by institutions that are better equipped to do their jobs.