Blue Sky Analytics, a climate intelligence company, building an API-based catalogue of environmental datasets by leveraging satellite data, AI, and cloud, has partnered with Esper Satellite Imagery, an Australian startup that provides hyperspectral imagery from their sensor networks onboard satellite platforms.
Through this partnership, Esper will provide raw data from its space-based hyperspectral sensors to Blue Sky, which will apply its proprietary algorithms on this raw data to develop land-based carbon sequestration monitoring infrastructure. This would contribute to enhancing the transparency of carbon markets.
“We’re excited to partner with Blue Sky Analytics as it furthers our mission of using our hardware to track metrics affecting our planet’s health and the resulting business impacts,” says Shoaib Iqbal, CEO of Esper Satellite Imagery, “As we launch our first sensors in May and build a larger network in the coming years, our work with Blue Sky Analytics will provide a more accurate analysis of Carbon emissions and sinks worldwide. Surveillance of our planet’s climate would be possible through Esper’s imagery data, giving stakeholders the data they need to make informed sustainable decisions.”
With the global climate crisis accelerating at an unprecedented rate, there is an increased impetus by companies across the world to comply with their net-zero commitments. This has, in turn, led to the emergence of carbon markets as a viable solution. The value of the global voluntary carbon market topped $1 billion in 2021 and is projected to cross $100 billion a year by 2050.
Voluntary Carbon Markets currently face many challenges related to transparency, speed and cost of verifications. This has hindered the growth of the carbon markets in terms of value discovery of the carbon credits generated and also the liquidity of carbon credits in exchanges and also led to greenwashing issues with a large trust deficit between buyers and sellers of carbon credits.
Blue Sky Analytics aims to minimise these challenges by introducing a strong layer of transparency to carbon sequestration projects and monitoring the true impact of these projects through their upcoming Asset Management System (AMS). The data provided by Esper through its network of sensors would prove crucial in powering this monitoring infrastructure by giving up-to-date chemical information about the earth’s atmosphere and mass.
“At Blue Sky, we believe that credible data is the cornerstone of effective climate action. With the carbon market poised to grow exponentially, accountability and traceability would play a key role in ensuring that the markets stay effective and serve their intended purpose, lead to value discovery and enhance the liquidity of carbon markets. This partnership with Esper and the data they will provide will be pivotal in developing an extensive monitoring infrastructure and mitigating the various challenges plaguing the carbon markets.” said, Abhilasha Purwar, Founder and CEO, Blue Sky Analytics.
About Blue Sky Analytics
Blue Sky Analytics is a Climate-Tech Startup using satellite-derived climate intelligence to power decisions across various sectors. Using their proprietary AI and ML models, the company provides off-the-shelf and bespoke global data solutions across various environmental indicators, including GHG emissions, climate risk across flood, drought, wildfire, and extreme heat, Environmental monitoring for - air and water pollution, and much more. With wide-ranging applications, the potential use-cases of Blue Sky Climate Intelligence includes monitoring & measuring physical climate risks of various assets, calculating climate VaR and stress testing for different warming scenarios. Blue Sky Climate Intelligence can be accessed via their user-friendly platform SpaceTime™ and accessible and easy-to-connect APIs.
About Esper
Esper, founded in 2019, is a Melbourne-based startup building space-based hyperspectral sensors for earth observation to track climate metrics such as carbon emissions and carbon sinks for Oil and Gas, Agriculture, Mining and many other industries utilising their proprietary sensor technology. Esper, with a mission to track 5B tons of carbon emissions annually, will launch their first pair of sensors in May of 2023. Dubbed as 'Over The Rainbow' mission, it will be followed by a larger sensor network of 18 sensors in orbit. You can read more about Esper here.
