Global Virtual
RICH EARTH SUMMIT
For Urine Diversion and Source Separation
Advancing circular sanitation for clean water and sustainable agriculture. Together, we can pee the change!
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November 4-6, 2026
Tickets are sold on a pay-what-you-can basis; please don't hesitate to reach out to julia@richearthinstitute.org to request a free ticket.
The 2026 Rich Earth Summit is the 12th annual gathering for urine diversion, compost toilets, and other source separation systems--advancing sustainable and equitable nutrient cycles. The Summit explores how nutrients in human “waste” can be reclaimed as a valuable resource for farms instead of becoming costly watershed pollutants. The Rich Earth Summit brings together a growing global community of researchers, nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs, farmers, educators, engineers, municipal leaders, policymakers, and advocates.
The Global Virtual Summit will feature three days of virtual presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and networking with participants from around the world. Hear the latest research, learn lessons from pilot projects, and discover emerging technologies. Together, we’ll grow a more fertile future through completing the nutrient cycle!
This event is part of the 2026-2027 Rich Earth Summit Series: join online this fall, then continue on Cape Cod next spring April 7-9 for the in-person US Summit, deepening connections with watershed leaders and the ecological sanitation community.
Keynote
"Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World"
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Joe Roman is a conservation biologist and author at the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont and a Fulbright-NSF Arctic scholar at the University of Iceland. His research interests include marine mammal ecology, zoogeochemistry, and endangered species conservation. He has worked on the conservation, ecology, and history of whales for more than 20 years, with a focus on nutrient transport, genetics, and the deep-sea biodiversity of whale falls. Joe has received a Radcliffe Fellowship at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a McCurdy Fellowship at the Duke University Marine Lab, and a Bellagio Residency. Winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act, Joe’s latest book is Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World. He is the editor ’n’ chef of eattheinvaders.org, a website dedicated to fighting invasive species one bite at a time.
Joe Roman
