Shereen Zorba, Head, UN-SPBF welcomed the participants to day two of the Second Meeting of the Governing Consortium and confirmed that the recommendations made would impact the scope for The Forum for the next three years. She advised that they would provide the overarching themes and issues, to cover gaps with issues relating to the environment and that every word and suggestion could assist in paving the future.

Big Data and AI for the Planet: Policy and UNEA Perspective

Ado Lohmus, Permanent Representative of Estonia to EC/UNEA Presidency 2017-2019, presented to the Consortium. He started by confirming that urgent attention should be taken to commence partnering with governments on a range of key actors attending the meeting.

Mr Lohmus relayed that it could be valuable for the Presidencies engaged with the platform, to sell the vision to member states about the best solutions available which will ensure that empowerment on a global level can be achieved. He advised that, “data seems to be a technical issue in particular with data gaps existing on a global level. A common understanding and standardisation of global data through the determination of a data strategy will enable progress to be measured.”

Mr Lohmus concluded by suggesting that the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum should act as a Steering Committee, showing strategic guidance and focus on overarching political development issues as well as supporting the member states to enable an understanding of environmental data.

Introducing World Environment Situation Room

Pascal Peduzzi, Director UNEP/GRID-Geneva presented to the Consortium about the work he has been undertaking to create a data and knowledge platform.

Ms Zorba asked what resources would be required to launch the platform, to which Mr Peduzzi replied that $5 million over the next four years would be required to ensure that delivery would take place according to the timeline.

IOT, AI: Technology for Sustainability and the Planet Opportunities and Challenges to Wider Deployment

Edan Dionne, VP IBM, presented this portion of the meeting proceedings. She confirmed that we are currently at a time where computers are more affordable than ever before and that new technology must be shared and accessible.

Ms. Dionne outlined the Jefferson Project undertaken by IBM, in association with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and The Fund for Lake George, to monitor the scale and impact of pollution and invasive species on Lake George, USA and to determine potential mitigation strategies.

Ms. Dionne outlined some additional examples of how IBM is using AI and other digital technologies to tackle environmental problems, including Agro Pad for analysing soil, Wildfire Detection to predict wildfires as well as the Watson Decision Platform to optimize agricultural yields.

Ms. Dionne concluded by confirming that IBM can do more but needs policy-makers to compel industries to make change.

AI for Good: Charting a Way Forward

Cyrus Hodes, Chair of The AI Initiative, Co-Founder of The Future Society, and Nicholas Miailhe, Co-Founder of the Future Society, joined proceedings via video call.

Mr. Hodes and Mr. Miailhe advised that they were currently involved in a AI4SDG Centre project to develop an operational multi-stakeholder partnerships model for a global framework on sustainable AI applications.

Mr. Miailhe concluded by suggesting that an AI Global Forum would enable problems such as data sharing and climate action to be tackled.

Shereen Zorba, Head, UN-SPBF questioned how their policies could be structured to frame the G20 opportunity. Cyrus confirmed that the next G20 Summit would be held in Saudi Arabia and that he had been advising the Saudi Government on AI principals.

Heri Ramampiaro, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Head of Data and AI Group, presented to the Consortium next.

Mr. Ramampiaro advised that the greatest challenges faced by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, is how to scale up to a global solution in terms of AI due to cultural differences. Another challenge he identified was technology acceptance due to demographical differences between different regions.

Dr. Anne Bowser, Global Partnership for Citizen Science, presented the Citizen Science perspectives on AI for Good, in which she concluded by advising that, “Citizen Science needs to establish ways to retain the community engagement of their volunteers by allowing them to know how their data is being used.”

Agu Leinfeld, Software Development and Technology Director, Datel AS presented the final component of this discussion panel. He highlighted that consistent, quality data is required to allow for the discovery and recognition of patterns to make the world a better place.

Mr. Leinfeld presented to the Consortium, Sille, a satellite imagery software for professional and amateur data analysts. He highlighted how in the City of Mexico; underground water removal has caused the land to sink. Sille is able to display to the users, where the sinking has taken place over the last three years.

Mr. Leinfeld suggested that in order to make the world a better place, information should be freely shared to allow even greater solutions to be solved.

Pascal Peduzzi advised that the UNEP/GRID Knowledge Platform will ensure that data is available to assist achieving the SDGs. Big data can automatically be reviewed through the 2,400 satellites currently orbiting the world. The data is in the process of being aggregated to allow a review of the changes in worldwide geography.

Participants asked how Citizen Science is best used for environmental monitoring purposes. To which Ms Bowser responded that Citizen science can add value by filling in data gaps and by prioritising where additional monitors are required. Citizen science can play a parallel role in terms of reporting by allowing daily and even hourly reads to take place.

Mobilizing capital to deliver sustainable development goals

Yuki Yasui, UNEP Finance Initiative, presented this portion of the meeting proceedings.

Ms. Yasui provided an overview of the UNEP Financial Initiative and advised that long term capital allocation is not currently aligned to the Paris Agreement targets. She advised that a huge emphasis of sustainable finance is on risk management. As new evidence has shown, environmental and social issues are a risk to financial institutions and businesses, where climate change activities are hurting the bottom line of financial institutions. Ms. Yasui provided a real-life example of GE Money who had recently made a large loss on the sale of a fossil-fuel powerplant.

Ms. Yasui relayed that climate change is both an economic and financial risk. The Financial Stability Boards Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures highlighted that businesses should be looking at scenario analysis to perform risk assessments.

UNEP have created an impact model to calculate the profit or cost, security valuation and portfolio level at today’s value translated to a range of different climate scenarios. Technology patterns were used to positively credit green revenue, while acute risks were calculated from a quality and life remaining pattern.

Ms. Yasui’s research showed that, calculated at today’s net present value, a two degree warming over the next fifteen years would create a policy risk of USD 6.6 trillion and an aggregated risk USD 2.7 trillion.

Ms. Yasui concluded there is strong evidence that financial institutions are trying to grapple climate change. Investors and governments are demanding change. Finally, the science policy community should cooperate more with the business community as well as service providers (climate analysts etc.).

Sustainable Public Procurement – Challenges and Opportunities

Farid Yaker, Resources and Markets Branch, UNEP, presented to the Consortium regarding his work on Sustainable Public Procurement.

He confirmed that public procurement accounts for USD 1.7 trillion of GDP, which makes it extremely important. Bringing a real-life example to the group, he advised that to produce one tonne of virgin paper, 98 individual resources are required.

Mr. Yaker noted that every single purchase has hidden human health, environmental and social impacts throughout the entire supply chain.

He proposed that the Sustainable Development Goals could be used as the main framework for articulating the impact areas, that require action by purchasers. By embracing technology and information platforms through the encouragement of e-procurement platforms, better visibility and control over purchasing data and patterns to facilitate the implantation of a harmonized reporting framework can be achieved. Through the exploration of AI and blockchain technology for solving some of the large data problems, the impacts that purchasing has can be better understood.

Tanya Harris, Global Procurement and Sustainability, The Fred Hollows Foundation presented her perspective on sustainable procurement.

Ms. Harris noted that a complex supply chain with high risks exists due to the world currently experiencing the highest rate of modern slaves in history. She confirmed that procurement needs to understand risks across the whole value chain and that it is a key enabler for rapid action to take place in terms of sustainability.

Ms. Harris expressed that to achieve sustainable public procurement, clear guidance on how to frame the action needs to be undertaken.  Targeted training and capacity building for procurers could also assist, while the readily available life cycle assessment data and credible certifications could also achieve sustainable public procurement.

How sustainability reporting can drive action across enterprises and governments

Rachael Bartels, Natural Resources and Industry Managing Director, Accenture presented this portion of the meeting proceedings. She highlighted that sustainability reporting has been around for the last 20 to 30 years. It is now time to strengthen and update reporting criteria, mechanisms and tools.

Ms. Bartels noted how the landscape of sustainability and sustainability reporting has shifted dramatically. According to Accenture, around 81% of consumers are changing their purchasing habits to be more sustainable and 61% are wanting a purpose led purchase. Nonetheless, she noted that Government regulation isn’t being the driver of these results, rather, consumer attitudes have changed.

Going forward, Ms. Bartels believes that a sustainability reporting framework would assist in determining whether products in the marketplace are sustainable. There is a need to move sustainability reporting out of a ‘sustainability function’ and further integrated into businesses. Sustainability reporting should form part of a company’s Annual Report rather than its current format.

Tracking domestic climate finance and investment

Ian Cochran and Hadrien Hainaut from I4CE presented this portion of the meeting proceedings via video call. They explained that I4CE is a non-profit think tank based in Paris that aims to link financial capital, project development and end investments with climate objectives.

Mr. Cochran and Mr. Hainaut explained how climate investment and financial flows are being intently reviewed. However, counterproductive climate finance flows and adverse fossil fuel investments still represent close to 70 billion euros per annum according to I4CE research.

They concluded by questioning how historic flows and the investment gaps should be reviewed to determine a trajectory for achieving carbon neutrality. They expressed their desire to scale this project internationally to ensure that a uniform approach to support consistency and comparability of data and methodologies globally.

Measures and metrics of [business] biodiversity performance

Benjamin Tregenna, Head of Informatics, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre presented.

He highlighted that biodiversity risk had increased the demand for the measurability of it in terms of reporting. He noted that six of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) refer to life on land and a requirement exists to allow for the private sector to have their contributions recognized.

Mr. Tregenna noted that a focus on GDP exists, yet an equivalent for biodiversity in not apparent. In response, his work provides a biodiversity framework, aligned with policy-level biodiversity targets. Twelve different approaches exist to achieve this and coordinated efforts are being made to achieve a coherent and comparable view.

Climate Leadership – a response of Polish business to the climate crisis challenges

Maria Andrzejewska, Director, UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre presented to GC Members about the launch of the Climate Leadership GRID-Warsaw programme to tackle the climate crisis.

Ms. Andrzejewska noted that Poland is taking action to address the climate crisis with an ambition to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. She noted that in order to achieve this, companies need to understand how they can change their core business towards a climate neutral path.

Big Data and AI to track the impacts of economic activities with the SDGs

Yuki Yasui, UNEP Finance Initiative, presented this portion of the proceedings.

Ms. Yasui advised that on 22 September 2019, 133 signatories launched the Principal for Responsible Banking. One third of the banking industry signed the document, worth an estimated USD 47 trillion. Ms. Yasui confirmed that innovative principles are required to align with sustainable development.

She highlighted the positive increase in the number of ‘Impact investors’, defined as investors who have a social goal, willing to forgo profits to achieve their objectives as well as those good for society and the planet.

Ms. Yasui advised that the UNEP Finance Initiative created 20 areas of impact through the dissection of the seventeen SDGs. The Impact Radar Tool allows each of the industry categories to identify where the positive and negative impact of the 20 categories align with their businesses. This tool will ultimately assist banks to make more personalized decisions based on their clients and strategies while mitigating negative impacts.

UNEP Medium Term Strategy: Multi-Sector Insights and Contributions

Gary Lewis, Director of Policy, UNEP, joined via video link to present this portion of the proceedings to the Consortium.

Mr. Lewis highlighted that the scope for the timing of UNEP’s Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) has been grouped into three areas: the climate crisis, nature-based solutions and sustainable development.

Mr. Lewis advised that the ultimate aim of UNEP is to create a measurable plan in line with the seventeen SDGs. The two-guidance process allows for targets to be set in line with the best solutions to address the environmental problems that exist today through scaling the best knowledge.

Participants highlighted that the UN Reporting needs to be written and packaged in a format relevant for a ‘c-level’ audience and questioned how the lessons learned can be translated elsewhere at different scales. Mr Lewis highlighted that a project was currently being undertaken to review 100 key environmental issues and create fact sheets using easy to understand language.

Launch of Planet Heroes Platform (supported by UN Greentech Start-up Initiative)

Przemek Pyziel, CEO and Founder, Planet Heroes launched the Planet Heroes Platform as a part of the GreenTech Start-up Initiative.

Mr. Pryziel explained that the Planet Heroes Platform was built to promote ecological activities and provide rewards to those who work for the benefit of the planet. Users take photos of clean-up projects and upload the photos at which point they are then provided with rewards.

Mr. Pryziel advised that the project had already started gathering support through social media with the hashtag #planethero and reiterated the projects ability to harness the power of the people to fight climate change.

Final Announcements, Conclusions and Adoption of 2020-2021 Work Plan

Shereen Zorba, Head, UN-SPBF, presented the several key action points that had been determined over the last two days. It was decided that the points would be reviewed and adopted at a later date.

Opening of the HL Working Group on Big Data and Digital Ecosystem for the Planet: Setting the Vision and Ambition

Professor Gilberto Camara, Director, Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Working Group Co-chair thanked the guests for their tremendous sense of energy and commitment.

Prof Camara questioned the guests on the current challenges faced in terms of ensuring that trusted data exists and challenged how state of the art technology can be provided that is trusted.

Martine Woolf, Ag Chief Environment, Geoscience Australia, highlighted that solutions are needed address the environmental challenges that are currently upon us. She highlighted how Geoscience Australia are grappling big data solutions through the infrastructure program Digital Earth Australia. She concluded by addressing the shared community commitment needed to share big data.

Nonetheless, ethical responsibilities are required to ensure that data privacy exists. Through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, technology that can address the environmental problems that exist.

Prof Jian Liu, Director of Science, UNEP, addressed why the Working Group exists and highlighted how the different groups involved can work together to address the environmental challenges that exist. He noted that according to a recent report on SDG progress, which analysed the 93 indicators relating to the environment, 68% are immeasurable due to the lack of meaningful data. Bridging the information gap that exists between the Global North and South, particularly in landlocked African nations needs to be addressed, especially as so many individuals now own smart phones.

A video message from Inger Anderson, Executive Director, UNEP was played to the attendees. She highlighted how science had sounded the alarm regarding the environmental crisis, and since this time, a renewed sense of urgency has intensified UNEP’s efforts.

Context, Mandates and Ambition from Paris to Canberra: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Dr Laurent Durieux, Head, Earth Observations, Institute of Research for Development, France and Co-organizer of Inaugural SPBF Session on Big Data, Paris discussed the need to look at how to process big data.

He concluded that, “The March 2020 deadline for the Action Plan is fast approaching and it is up to the working group to take a look at how to create environmental policies, that can rely on the timely and reliability of big and in-situ data in making these decisions.”

Ministerial Action and Ambition

Ado Lohmus, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the EC, highlighted the themes of UNEA-5 included finding innovative solutions for the environmental challenges while promoting sustainable consumption and production. He expressed that, “The first priority is to bring the partnerships between business, policy and science together to create environmental data.” He noted that businesses can’t start achieving actions without targets. A need to harmonise data sources exists to ensure that AI and Big Data analysis can take place in an open platform that allows the sharing of harmonised data.

Dr Stefano Nativi, Big Data Lead Scientist of the Joint Research Centre, European Commission, highlighted that a monumental task within the data ecosystem exists and an end to end solution is required. He noted that a key part of the solution is how to increase the pace in unraveling the complexities of the environmental agendas that exist. Dr Nativi emphasized to the Working Group the paradigm shift required to understand how to collect Big Data and use it appropriately.

Gregory Scott, Inter-Regional Advisor, Global Geospatial Information Management, UN Statistics Division, noted that digital transformation and innovation is unleashing the power of data and citizens can assist in closing the data gaps that exist. Nonetheless, he highlighted that, “A challenge in closing the data gaps, is knowing that the right data is being collected. Through comparability and timeliness, data can be harmonized and integrated.”

He noted that Big Data is the first part of the data cycle and that the establishment of a techno-socio-economic ecosystem platform could address the challenges faced. Nonetheless, governance needs to be a part of the decision-making process.

Dr Steffen Fritz, Deputy Program Director, Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) noted that a big opportunity exists to connect with the citizens of the world to bridge the data gaps that exist to ensure that the advancement of knowledge can continue at the pace required. He highlighted how World Water Monitoring Day had harnessed the voluntary contributions of 1.5 million citizens and noted that a number of actions are being undertaken to ensure that the data collected is fair and trustworthy.

Jean Dusart, Policy Specialist, European Commission, presented to the Working Group. He opened by noting that the European data economy was valued at €300 billion in 2016 which is estimated to grow to €739 billion by 2020. Nonetheless, challenges are being faced regarding the availability, quality, organisation, accessibility, and sharing of geospatial information. Further challenges that need to be addressed include governance, policies regarding the flow of data, AI trustworthiness, data re-use and privacy.

Mr Dusart mentioned the initiatives the European Union has created to build the European Data Economy to ensure fair and open data markets exist and business to government data sharing policies, codes of conduct and ethical and legal framework on AI.

He concluded with a quote from U. Von der Leyen, “digital technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) are transforming the world at an unprecedented speed. They have changed how we communicate, live and work. They have changed out societies and our economies”.

Edan Dionne, IBM, highlighted that AI should augment human intelligence rather than replace it. The benefits should flow to many, rather than the elite few.

Secondly, data is only for the creator meaning that IBM’s client data is their own data. Although IBM contribute to assisting in clients getting their insights, their data won’t ever be handed to Government department. Finally, for the public to trust AI, they need to trust the technology.

World Environment Situation Room

Pascal Peduzzi, Director, UNEP/GRID Geneva presented the prototype of the World Environment Situation Room (WESR), an essential knowledge instrument to support progress on delivering the environmental dimension of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

The WESR website aims to promote the use and sharing of environmental data and engage a number of stakeholders on various environmental challenges on a global scale. Through working with data providers to transform data linking with SDG principles, indicators from a range of levels can be displayed to promote the environmental data in real-time.

Mr. Peduzzi demonstrated how to use the website based on the prototype and showed how a range of search mechanisms will allow this information to be displayed. Data cubes which compare the images of the world in 1985, 2000 and 2015 will enable the changes in geography to be viewed through the embedded search functionality.

China’s Digital Earth

Professor Fang Chen, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) presented to WG participants about the platform China has been developing, called CAS Earth. The Big Data Cloud Service platform is aimed at resolving major scientific and technological problems and provides impetus for a new interdisciplinary, cross scale, macro-scientific approach using Big Earth Data.

Prof. Chen advised that users can now access 40% of the data online and that approximately 3PB will be uploaded annually and that the platform may assist in solving the problem of global data integration.

Prof. Chen explained how the platform is helping to provide data for measuring progress on six of the SDGs.

Copernicus Observations Programme (ESA)

Ivan Petiteville, European Space Agency (ESA) explained the Copernicus Observation Program which has developed a range of Earth Observation missions. Fifteen satellites are currently in operation with six used for the Copernicus Observation Programme.

Mr. Petiteville highlighted that new satellites will commence operation in the near future to assist in gathering data, including polar ice topography and land surface temperate. He highlighted that the program aims to support the global agendas of the Paris Agreement, SDGs

Break-out groups: Turning data into action

Working Group participants were split into four break-out groups representing different industries and sectors to discuss and devise specific messages for the UN-SPBF to prioritise solutions on the environment.

The break-out groups discussed the following questions:

1. What are the Working Groups common and differentiated goals?
2. Who are we serving?
3. What needs building?
4. How can it be financed?
5. What can be done between now and the next meeting?
6. What other members of the community should be identified?
7. What is the greatest impact we can make now?

Panel Discussion: Digital Planet – The Imperative for and Challenge of Disruptive Innovation

A panel discussion moderated by Charles Ross, Economist Intelligence Unit discussed the topic of Disruptive Innovation.

The panel included: Charles Ross, Economist Intelligence Unit, (Moderator), Jeremy Mitchell, Huawei Australia, Steve Kopp, ESRI, Hendrik Hamann, IBM, Rebecca Moore, Google Earth, Andrew Zolli, Planet.com, Marika Popp, Guardtime AS

Mr. Ross: Organizations, policy makers and people need to rely on and trust data to make decisions and this is challenging in this environment. What is your suggestion to overcome this?

Ms. Popp: The Blockchain solution is a disruption. In 2007, Estonia was cyber attacked by Russia. In response, Estonia is now leading the way in Blockchain technology to tackle the threat from future cyber attacks. The private sector has an important role to play in developing Blockchain technology by ensuring that massive amounts of data can be deployed and is made safe. Additionally, Ms. Popp mentioned that Blockchain technology has been embraced by the European Space Agency to support with Earth Observation data management.

Mr. Ross: How do we ensure the integrity of data is maintained?

Ms. Popp: Data is vast and a need for high quality, trustworthy data is required. Deciding how the integrity of data is assessed is a huge responsibility, to ensure that any manipulated data is recognized and dealt with. These decisions will have an impact for generations to come.

Mr. Ross: What are some of the obstacles that are limiting us?

Mr. Hamann: Don’t overestimate what technology can do. A large amount of data is being collected that is relevant to our planet. It needs to be determined whether we are keeping up with the insights we are generating. As we collect more and more data, are we investing in the right technology to make the most of it? If we want to keep up with the pace of the data generated, it must be indexed correctly so that it becomes searchable.

Mr. Ross: Do we have environmental data that can be searched for in real-time?

Ms. Moore: We have progress to report. Over the last couple weeks, a wildfire in California started and we developed algorithms in our Google Earth platform to stream and analyse the data. If you now type into google ‘wildfire google earth’ hot pixels showing the temperate are able to derive a perimeter of the fire.

Mr. Ross: What are challenges you are faced with?

Ms. Moore: How Earth Observation data can be deployed to be most helpful to society. A global framework needs to be devised to assist in filling the gaps of information. True information can be challenging as some people do not want to know about the raw data.

Mr. Ross: How do you make it available to industry?

Ms. Moore: A project is being undertaken with the UN regarding the distribution of fresh water at a 30-meter square resolution on a global scale. The data analysis involved used 600 million hours of computation time, which would have taken 1200 years on a single computer. There is a need to aggregate reporting in a particular way and we are working with many countries to adopt relevant standards. Google can contribute many computers to accelerate the operation, but partnerships need to be aligned.

Mr. Ross: Who should we be talking to and is it a genuine problem that the industry is facing?

Mr. Zolli: Over time, things that were rare and expensive become cheap and easy. It is important to articulate that disruptive data has plummeted in cost. We took technology and put it into space. The availability of data is accelerating while the price is dropping. We are nowhere near the true disruption point. That is the moment you will see changes start to take place.

Ms. Moore: A quote from an employee of Google states that, “we are drowning in data but are thirsty for insights”. The problem lays with the fact that there is a lot of data and we are not extracting useful insights from. Through higher resolution imagery, we have been able to provide much more actionable information about where deforestation is happening and on whose property. There is a huge opportunity to generate that type of information.

Innovative Finance and Business Models

This panel was moderated by Shereen Zorba, Head, UN-SPBF.

Dr Zaffar Sadi Mohamed-Ghouse, Executive Director, Strategic Consulting & International Relations, Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute, provided his experience to the Working Group participants in spearheading start-ups to becoming self-funded businesses.

He described a variety of projects including the Malaysian Geospatial Master Plan which started as a government funded project but is now privatizing. He said that the increasing privatization of Earth Observation projects allows market forces to determine the correct pricing for geospatial technologies which could result in additional benefits such as job creation and faster innovation.

Gordon Noble, Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative, spoke about the opportunities for funding in the area of Big Data.

Mr. Noble explained how each of the three international environmental commitments highlight the role of the finance sector, yet questions still remain regarding the most cohesive way to align. He noted that the finance sector is committed to working in a collaborative way and engaging with government regulators. The Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative was created to capture the global committee being built surrounding the area of responsible investment. Companies are rated based on their characteristics to assist investors to make informed decisions.

Mr. Noble explained that the investment horizon of a pension fund has a 20 to 40-year focus which differs vastly to governments short term focus. Investments need to have a long term focused and this has been the driver in the finance industries willingness to adapt. Investor perspective is driving the possibility of stranded assets in the future.

Jean Dussart, Policy Officer, The European Commission, spoke to Working Group participants about research and innovation in Europe. The Sustainable Europe Plan is currently in the process of being prepared and will assist in supporting USD 1 trillion of investment over the next decade in Europe. The Digital Europe program is another important project currently underway that will see the digital transformation of society and is relevant for a digital ecosystem for the environment.

New technology directions

Dr Hendrik Hamann, IBM, presented to the group and reiterated a recurring theme that had been surfaced during the week – do we need more data? Dr Hamann suggested we have enough data, although we need more but it needs to be collected from non-satellite sources. Dr. Hamann also highlighted another theme that had been uncovered, surrounding the issue on how to combine data and distribute it as information.

Dr. Hamann noted that challenges surrounding the lack of searchable Earth Observation data exists. Although leveraging data is ideal, it does not address the deficiencies that exist in streaming data such as the lack of searchability.

Live Streaming Space

Dr Elena Lobo, SEN, presented about her company’s expertise live streaming Earth Observation video from space. She highlighted that to leverage data technology, a variety of data is required, including videos of earth from satellites. SEN aims to make information accessible and actionable to ensure that activities can progress and to address the ever changing environment.

A New Class of Decision Support Platform Holistic Impact Assessment

David Lucido, Sentient Hubs, presented to the group about the platform his team has designed. A new class of decision support platform that uses integrated impact assessment across economic, environmental, and social dimensions for planning and governance decision making purposes. The platform will enable users to determine how different parameters can effect communities through an interactive dashboard, for instance, how a 2% increase in population could affect traffic and demand for power and water. The platform is powerful as it can assist a range of stakeholders in understanding a range of implications.

Technical & Data Foundation for Sustainability Analysis & Reporting

Jurgen Wichenberger, Accenture, presented about the Sustainability Analysis and Reporting Accenture has developed. He highlighted that many of his clients make up the worst polluters in the world. Rapid developments in reporting technology is helping these companies become more transparent with their pollution and sustainability reporting.

Mr. Wichenberger noted that information can be sought to create action. Accenture has developed a platform which integrates 127 data sources every four weeks to help build a solution to assist their clients in lowering their carbon footprint.

Creating a Culture of Accountability

Luhui Yan, Carbonstop, identified that data requirements differ between governments, industry and consumers. Carbonstop software is used to report to the government about companies’ emissions through the “carbon management software”.

The software not only helps the Chinese Government sanction polluters, but can also encourage sustainable business practice, for instance, one organisation achieved a USD 100 million contract with L’Oréal due to their good performance on Carbonstop

Closing Deliberations

Gilberto Camara, Director, Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Working Group Co-chair, Eden Dionne, IBM and Pascal Peduzzi, UNEP/GRID-Geneva, provided the closing remarks to the Working Group.

Mr. Peduzzi highlighted that it had become apparent that significant institutional support is required. The Working Group was made up of a fascinating number of participants with a strong engagement to achieve the SDGs.

Ms. Dionne highlighted her observations from the week, including that  it had been made apparent a need for ethical and responsible data sharing. She highlighted that the second meeting of the Working Group has provided positive interactions and inclusiveness, through the tremendous enthusiasm and sense of urgency towards solving the environmental crisis.

Mr. Camara explained to the Working Group about the creation of GEO and noted that although separate, it is actually a part of the UN system. He advised that when starting a new formation, such as the Task Force, the excitement can surpass goodwill and although enthusiasm will wane, there is a strong a need to provide a mechanism that promotes sustainable business practice.

Ms. Zorba thanked Mr. Camara, Mr. Peduzzi and Ms. Dionne for their comments. She confirmed that she was proud to have convened in Canberra and for the transparency and desire to contribute to the process conveyed during the week. Ms. Zorba then invited Anne Bowser, one of the Co-chairs of the Global Partnership, to present the final proposals, which were:

1. Connect to existing platforms such as the World Environment Situation Room using the private sector and Citizen Science.
2. Determine common overarching principles.
3. Connect platforms to link interoperable data in a structured manner through pilots and prototypes to achieve a range of SDGs to fill gaps and methodologies.
4. Accomplish the goals through governance, funding and fundraising strategies through the use of Task Forces.

Laurent Durieux thanked Ms Zorba for all of the work that she had performed to achieve a successful week.