Without full understanding of the data at their disposal, companies risk ‘stumbling around in the dark’, says Antoine Rostand, president and co-founder of Kayrros.
Lack of data and lack of data maturity risk holding back decarbonisation. That has emerged from survey after survey: CEOs worldwide report missing crucial information concerning their emissions and/or their energy use, or lack the know-how to gather data, integrate it into their business, and learn from it.
Businesses are missing out on the chance to position themselves as leaders in environmental stewardship, reduce long-term operating costs, access green finance, keep up with climate regulations, and gain a clearer understanding of what’s happening within their business and supply chains. Then there’s the small matter of the climate challenge.
Data abounds
It isn’t lack of data per se that’s a problem. It’s a widespread lack of comprehension regarding which data to use and how to use it. Indeed, there’s an abundance of data, thanks in large part to advances in space and climate technology.
Public and private satellites orbiting at different speeds and operating at different distances from the Earth take terabytes’ worth of raw images of the planet every day.
On the ground, climate intelligence companies process those images, stitch them together, and build up a picture of the planet that organisations can actually use.
Companies are using it. National and supranational governments are using it. Thanks to data, we can predict and monitor fires and flooding, deforestation and biodiversity, emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, construction of solar panels and crypto facilities.
What data can do
Governments can use this kind of data to shape policy and then enforce it, as the European Union is doing with its 2024 methane regulations. But companies keen to decarbonise can make use of it in many different ways.
They can find out what they’re emitting directly and indirectly, at any point along their supply chain.
They can use the data to run a hot spot analysis and create a strategy for cutting emissions at points of maximum impact, in the most cost-effective way.
They can track progress accurately as they execute that strategy and use the data both internally and in their external communications to stakeholders. Working with climate intelligence companies, they can become truly data-driven in how they approach decarbonisation.
Missed opportunities
Without data, in contrast, companies resemble someone stumbling around in the dark. Carbon footprint analyses across Scopes 1 and 2 and 3 – corresponding respectively to direct emissions, emissions from purchased or acquired energy, and emissions from along the value chain – remain incomplete.
Absent baseline data, targets are either vague or estimations that are either too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Progress becomes impossible to measure, and so strategies become impossible to improve. And complacency can set in – a complacency that could see businesses fall foul of (for example) the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and other rules and standards. All this is to say that without data, decarbonisation grinds to a halt.
Obstacles to adoption
It’s unrealistic to expect the climate crisis to remain at the top of the political agenda – despite the tragic scenes we’ve seen of late in Los Angeles and Valencia, among many other places. When incoming or incumbent governments relax their regulations or choose to play down the climate risk, companies will be tempted to kick the proverbial can down the road.
In other parts of the world where the climate is considered a key item, rules around disclosure and penalties for climate underperformance can make it equally tempting for companies to put off adopting data, lest they discover that they are a long way away from where they should be. The problem of integration, which must be tailored to the company in question, can also lead to resistance.
Why?
Even if the climate crisis weren’t to intensify – and all the evidence says otherwise – there are excellent reasons to decarbonise, as I’ve suggested above. Cost savings, increased productivity, greater organisational knowledge and reputational benefits await companies who do it well.
Organisations should do two things: first, to see data integration and data-led decarbonisation as a huge opportunity that will sooner or later become an obligation and, secondly, to work with partners with the know-how to ‘bake’ data into their operations.
Kayrros is a global environmental intelligence company and a world leader in earth and asset observation technology.
