Ecogenomics, as a scientific field, is not new, although it has become a nebulous concept [2]. George Brewer defined Ecogenetics as a necessary response to the environmental concerns such as pollution, and called for multidisciplinary research combining genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, and pharmacology [3]. It was a novel view of ‘human ecology’. In subsequent years, concepts of the environment have been central to fields such as ecosystem genetics and environmental DNA studies [4], and important to the development of epigenetics, epidemiology, exposomics, pharmacogenomics, and toxicogenomics [5, 6]. Genomics has also been part of the ecological conservation field [7].

COP15, however, is an opportunity to further develop a vision for genomics; and, as such, we propose not only the consolidation in the field of Ecogenomics, but an expansion of the field into social ecology and social conservation. Whereas ecology and conservation were once related to non-human fields, they are now orientated to the connections between the social lives of human beings and non-human animals and the environments they share [8]. These fields have become central to the idea of One Health:

‘One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent. The approach mobilizes multiple sectors, disciplines, and communities at varying levels of society to work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems, while addressing the collective need for healthy food, water, energy, and air, taking action on climate change and contributing to sustainable development’ [9].

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is remarkable in affirming [where they are recognised] the ‘…rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth, [and are] an integral part of its successful implementation’ (p. 5), and even calls for a ‘One Health Approach’ (Section C(r)).

We therefore imagine Ecogenomics, as part of an aspirational Ecological Genome Project (inspired by the ambitious global endeavour of The Human Genome Project), to connect an *eco*logy built around the genomic sequencing of the world around us, to human *genomics*. We see such a Project as building on the significance of genes to cultures with natural history. The Project expands human ecology into a grand vision of our ‘home’ (from the Greek oikos)—the biosphere of Planet Earth—to connect the molecular and exposome study of human and non-human life, situated in shared environments and communities. These relationships affect us throughout our lives and are inheritable. The Project therefore started with the concept of exposomics and the scientific measurement of environmental exposures [10], but now is an opportunity for exploring further the ecological dimensions of health.

Ecogenomics concerns three areas.

First, genomics has been used as an approach to develop biotechnological opportunities (often from, or by modifying, ecoservices, e.g., modified compounds, and gene-edited crops) to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Footnote 3 COP15 emphasised that continued loss of biodiversity is linked to the social and environmental determinants of health (particularly SDG13 Climate Action, SDG14 Life Below Water, and SDG15 Life on Land) and requires strengthening the Nagoya principle of ‘benefit sharing’. How, then, does human genomics relate to the environmental SDGs and to biodiversity as implied by the ecological lens of the One Health approach?

Part of the answer comes in the second area: Ecogenomics recognises the ways the human genome is embedded in ecosystems and influenced by diverse environmental factors. It is the molecular study of the environmental influences on an organism’s genome, including the impacts of ambient agents on heritable variations (e.g. exogenous mutagens), or changes in the personal microbiome [11].Footnote 4 Patterns of molecular, genetic, and epigenetic change must also be studied in ways that account for communities’ complex social histories, exposures to stress, and access to the basic resources and opportunities that promote community health, but that are also influenced by social ecology. (We know that sociality with animals, and in nature, impacts on our health. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how both were part of the narrative—e.g., contact with bats, lock downs with companion animals/without access to nature, and the ‘social lives’ of microorganisms [12].)

Thirdly, is the understanding that the environment is dynamic: it connects us to nature, sometimes in interdependent ways; it is a space we share with other biotic communities; and it signifies a natural history in which genomic similarities between species, in many respects, are more than the differences. This is an ethical, legal, and social investigation of our relationships with other species [8].

The common thread of Ecogenomics, therefore, is that human life on planet Earth relies on the diversity of other species. The visionary Ecological Genome Project is a global initiative to inspire the study of human well-being as a connection to non-human animals, and the plants and microbes around us, also recognising the importance of biodiversity, conservation, and ecology. Understanding these connections, dependencies, and interactions between the organisms that live here, and with which we share space and resources, reveals the importance of the ecological systems that sustain all of us. Their study is only possible as integrated multi-omics. In this respect, the approaches to genomics, including human epigenetics and the individual human microbiome, have begun to explore environmental DNA (e-DNA) and comparative genomic diversity of non-human species. But to be successful requires further integration of ‘eco’ sciences. Our present understanding may be limited by anthropocentric outcome measures. Expanding our vision includes taking research in unusual directions to explore radical solutions to find out who and what is interacting across environments, including species genomic variation and its relevance to resilience and susceptibility across the natural and social worlds.

Ecogenomics is the recognition of the situatedness of human beings and our relationships with other species and planetary health more widely. Our vision is one in which the human health/disease risk/phenotype paradigm is compatible with the international turn to ethical environmentalism.