Digitising Environmental Impacts using Geospatial Analytics
At a glance
- Co-project leader : Prof. Dr. Patrick Laube, Prof. Dr. Jan-Alexander Posth
- Deputy of project leader : Dr. Tomasz Orpiszewski
- Project team : René Itten, Hanno Rahn, Prof. Dr. Peter Schwendner
- Project budget : CHF 149'375
- Project status : ongoing
- Funding partner : Public sector (excl. federal government) (Kanton Zürich / Digitalisierungsinitiative DIZH / Innovationsprogramm)
- Contact person : Jan-Alexander Posth
Description
Biodiversity loss and water scarcity are increasing at an unprecedented rate. Small and large companies in agriculture, extractive and other industrial sectors have the greatest negative impact on ecosystems and water. Governments, international regulators, trade associations, non-governmental organizations and the media in Europe and the US are putting pressure on companies to reduce their direct and indirect impacts.
In the current globalized economy, it is not easy to determine and actively track the associated risk exposures to individual locations. Investment houses have thousands of stocks in their portfolios and know little about individual locations of individual companies. Industrial and food companies typically import resources from distant countries where they have limited knowledge of local conditions.
As part of the Founder Call, we want to found the company biodiversity.tools AG and build a scalable, digital solution for this purpose, with which the locations of companies, such as mines or quarries, can be clearly and objectively examined and compared with regard to biodiversity and water risks.