Who we are
Common Measure is a United States company, headquartered in Washington, DC. It serves only United States programs.
About the team
The team
Common Measure is being built by a team with experience in three areas: environmental genomics and eDNA analysis; bioinformatics and scientific data infrastructure; and building environmental testing and monitoring businesses. Most of our work has been in aquatic systems: lakes, rivers, wetlands and oceans.
Contact us to learn more about the team building this, and where you might play a role →01 · US PROGRAMS
Built for US programs
Clean Water Act bioassessment, ESA and NEPA review, hydropower relicensing, offshore wind and BOEM permitting, mine reclamation and closure, forestry certification, and state invasive watchlists across land and water. Fifty states, each with its own rules.
Data residency
Customer data and results are stored in the United States, under United States jurisdiction, with access controls you set. Processing infrastructure moves to a United States region on our first federal or tribal contract, and no later than the end of 2027. We state both the present position and the commitment because a reader evaluating us for a government program needs to know the difference.
Tribal data governance
Tribal nations are sovereign governments. We follow the CARE principles for Indigenous data governance in all work involving tribal data.
Procurement
Federal contracting has its own registrations, its own timelines and its own evidentiary standards. So does every state. Being inside that system is a prerequisite.
The reference layer is national
United States species coverage and fifty different state invasive watchlists. A national registry has to be built against United States reality.
02 · GOVERNANCE
Neutrality is built into the governance.
An external science committee selects reference databases and versions, and adjudicates how names map to identifiers when taxonomy changes. Common Measure staffs the committee, funds it, and publishes for it. We hold no vote.
The committee is designed so that the people who could most easily be accused of capturing it are structurally unable to:
- Seats are held by agency scientists, academic taxonomists, end users, an Indigenous data governance practitioner, and two laboratory representatives drawn from competing laboratories.
- Terms are staggered, rotating and time-limited.
- Minutes are published.
- Panel changes go out for public comment before they take effect.
The committee is not a substitute for formal standards work and is not intended to become one. Its job is to govern the decisions Common Measure would otherwise make alone: which reference databases are consulted, at which versions, how names map to identifiers, and what changes when taxonomy is revised. Where a formal standards body takes up any of those questions, the committee's role on that question ends.
Two laboratories that compete with each other, sitting at the same table, is the strongest evidence of neutrality we can offer. It also means the committee hears from people who actually run this work.
The committee charter, including seats and voting rules, will be published before the founding committee is announced in January 2027.
03 · APPROACH
Proven technology, built for this market
Common Measure is built on a bioinformatics platform that already runs at commercial scale.
What we are building around them is specific to this country: US-region hosting, United States reference coverage, federal and state procurement readiness, and tribal data governance.
04 · STATUS
Where we are
Common Measure is pre-launch. The company launches in 2027. Before then we are doing three things: listening to laboratories, agencies and buyers across the country, designing an independent cross-laboratory comparison study with US partners, and mapping how environmental DNA results can be made ingestible by the national and state biodiversity databases that regulators actually consult.
We would rather be visible and early than polished and late.
Listening
More than twenty-five structured conversations with laboratories, agencies, consultancies and buyers across freshwater, marine and terrestrial monitoring.
Proving
An independent cross-laboratory comparison study, published openly, establishing what a shared reference frame is actually worth.
Launch
The reference layer and the first version of the open specification.
Where to go next
What we do
The reference layer, the audit trail, and what is covered at launch across the methods of environmental DNA.
See what we do →Where we'll be
Conferences, workshops and working groups. If you are going too, we'd like to meet.
See the calendar →