Pollution, Illegal land use and mining, deforestation, clean air, forest preservation, food security and decarbonisation.
Difficult problems facing the world today with big impacts for society, environment and the economy.
Financing the Sustainable Development Goals
I have previously written about the role of the GISD, (Global Investors for Sustainable Development) thirty global business leaders who will work together over the next two years in a bid to free up trillions of dollars from the private sector to finance the Sustainable Development Goals.
Denis Duverne, who chairs the board of directors at the insurer AXA, has confirmed that climate exposure is on its way to becoming a standard risk factor for investors and knowledge about it is becoming business critical. Increasing regulations around sustainability are certainly driving a need for measurement and reporting on the sustainable use of natural resource utilisation and exploitation.
Natural Capital - "if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it"
Demand for up-to-date knowledge has been a driver for our business. As one of a handful of specialist space intelligence companies globally - providing precision measurement of changes in Natural Capital and the sustainable use of natural resources in near real-time. Quoting Lord Kelvin “To measure is to know. If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it.”
Innovation will drive global sustainable accountancy
With this commercial transition already under way, this gives innovative companies like GSI, a big early incentive to contribute to being part of a ‘global sustainable accountant’ for the markets. Individual companies, lobby groups - not just Governments and international institutions - and therefore a larger section of society will have access to near real-time data of the globe. This allows for them to hold countries and companies accountable for poor practices and consequent damaging environmental and climate footprints. Global markets will find it increasingly difficult to not ignore the sustainable empathy and consciousness that the greater society now feels.
Data and Space derived intelligence and knowledge is on verge of exploding
"Cheap, global, real-time monitoring for anyone who wants it can give governments and advocacy groups a new way to target big polluters", notes Ned Harvey, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Data and Space derived intelligence and knowledge is on the verge of exploding due to the increase in the number and quality of sensors, AI techniques and the means of knowledge dissemination in a structured and disciplined manner.
In 2019 , GSI surveyed tens of millions of hectares of land globally from space
The thirst for this knowledge from industry has enabled GSI to achieve its most productive year to date. During 2019, GSI commercially surveyed tens of millions of hectares of land globally using our AI-enabled space intelligence platform for the preservation and sustainable use of forested land. These valuable insights revealed practices which exploit the environment, habitats and vulnerable societies and enabled more informed commercial decisions to be taken about natural assets.
Forest Industry Spotlight
Sawmills and pulp mills need to keep their operations running steady with a continuous supply of wood that meets their species, size and quality specifications in order to keep operational costs down and profits up. Our up-to-date forest species and stratification maps and insights (ForestNow) enable mills to discover suitable timber in potentially close proximity to the mills to keep the costs of sourcing, transportation and carbon footprint to a minimum. For example, US wood products have generated annual sales over $200 billion in recent years. We contribute to this industry by supplying very cost effective timber-assets market intelligence.
Our team are looking forward to expanding the reach of our asset intelligence in 2020 aiming to be part of the solutions of tomorrow.
By Gavin Tweedie, CEO
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