Monitoring Mother Nature: Global Data Andrew Steer World Economic Forum 2015

Monitoring Mother Nature: Global Data Andrew Steer World Economic Forum 2015″Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the World Resources Institute, says better data can change the world by helping companies, countries and individuals to be more accountable for the the impact they have on the environment. In this video for the World Economic Forum, Steer says big data from remote sensors and satellites now gives us the right indicators to be able to measure things like deforestation, water risks and greenhouse gases, and will lead to better decision making. Click on the video above to view Steers whole talk, or read some quotes below. On data and decision makingThe World Resources Institute seeks to intermediate between this amazing data and the decision maker. In the old days, people had a hard time knowing what was going on. You could get data on deforestation, but it was mainly four years out of date and came in a big fat book. As a result of that, every single minute of every single day, weve been losing 50 soccer fields. Weve lost an area that is three times the size of Germany, and thats in large part because we didnt know. And so recently, weve put together a partnership with 60 institutions led by the World Resources Institute, but drawing on private sector expertise from all around the world. We use advances in satellite technology, incredible advances in cloud computing and amazing advances in digitisation and communication, so that everyone on the planet can now know what is happening down to the 100 – 200 metre level. Its not only satellites that give us data, its citizens around the world where anybody with a GPS linked smartphone could take a picture, write a story and it gets uploaded. So its a top down, bottom up, transformative database. On tracking deforestation Consider for example palm oil. Its by far the biggest cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia. Now we can narrow down, and can actually see that deforestation is happening outside where its allowed, in illegal areas. And then we can look in great detail at this areas, and we have the data about which companies have which concessions. So what do you do with that information? Well what Unilever is doing, is saying were committed to deforestation free purchasing of palm oil, so any company thats misbehaving is built into the software that we use to purchase oil palm. We live in a transformative time. The good news is its not only deforestation that we can measure. Were starting to get the ability to measure reforestation. Measuring reforestation is harder to do, but we can now ask: why do we allow two billion hectares of the world which weve mapped – twice the size of China – why do we allow that wonderful natural capital to go to waste? Wouldnt it be smart to invest in that, restore it to good agriculture, restore it to forests? So weve had this wonderful commitment, made at the UNs Secretary-Generals Summit in September 2014, for 350 million hectares of forest be restored by 2030. Countries and private investors are coming forward and saying Now we get it!. On Water shortagesWe use modelling techniques and remote sensing to show where the risk is greatest. We have 12 different indicators, both quantity and quality of water. Its called Aqueduct, and because private companies now recognise that water is a very big commercial risk, as shown by the risk assessment that the Forum does every year. A couple of months ago, the Bloomberg Terminal said were getting such a lot of interest from our clients on water risk, we want to actually put this data on the terminals. Its not because were environmentalists, its about good business decisions. So all of a sudden 300,000 investors are getting access to water risk data. This data helps countries and companies think through irrigation strategy, food and energy security to empower decisions and create a better FOR MORE DAVOS 2015 VIDEO: + : economic forum,world economic forum 2015,documentary,documentary 2015,WEF,Davos,davos 2015,news 2015,news,economic,economic 2015,economics 2015,economic Development,economic documentary,economic documentary 2015,world economic 2015,davos168,