Carbonica

Idea:

As an additional decarbonization method, companies are able to purchase Carbon Offsets to pay for one metric ton of CO2 removed or avoided from the Earth. These projects include renewable energy and forestry projects among many others. There is a lack of transparency between the carbon offset buyers and providers. We aim to solve this by leveraging satellite data to improve transparency of these carbon offsets, providing the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered by these projects.

The companies that are buying carbon offsets have very little information on the carbon offsets they are buying, their quality and impact on climate and local communities. Once the offsets are bought, the people buying them have little information on how the project is evolving, if it is delivering on its promises or not. 

With the latest greenwashing scandals, the companies are looking for transparency and traceability on their investments. This ensures the integrity of their green claims and improves the public image of the company.

Our solution utilizes the most recent satellite data to view and monitor the forestry projects, calculating an estimate of the carbon dioxide that the project has successfully sequestered. This allows the company to know the effectivity and reveal concrete numbers to their investments.

EU space technologies:

We are utilizing a pre-trained Machine Learning model which is trained on all Sentinel-2-L2A Bands, geographical coordinates, summing up a total of 15 inputs. The model also utilizes NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) as a sparse reference data. The model outputs mean tree height and variance for every tile. These tree height measurements are used as variables to calculate the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered from the atmosphere. Within our web-app, Sentinel-2-L1C Data is also used to display accurate images of the project process, showing the land before the project is initiated and the current state of the area.

Space for International Development & Humanitarian Aid:

We are solving for the first challenge: Supporting sustainable infrastructure development. 

Carbon offsets are an important part of the solution towards European Union’s 2030 & 2050 objectives for emission reduction and acheiving net zero. Carbon offsets finance sustainable projects that would not have been implemented without the money generated from the offsets. In striving for integrity to these carbon offset projects, it ensures that these projects are both monitored and the benefits will be sustainable for a long period of time. It avoids greenwashing and improves the chances for these projects to succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By bringing transparency on the projects to the final customers, the companies that are still cautious today to start including offsets in their decarbonizing strategy would feel more confident in doing so, as they would have data to support their claims. As a result, it increases the market value for carbon offsets and allows for more innovation and solutions to be created.

Team Carbonica:

Manap Shymyr - Data analysis

Lien Bradley - Design, AI

Tea Bano - Project owner

Marketa Becevova - Data analysis

Christopher Kohar - Data, AI

Batikan Ormanci - Frontend, AI, general hacking

Aditya Joshi - Compliance, analysis

Jack Glacken - Facilitator

Arkadiy Telegin - Mentor, Computer science