The past eight years have been the warmest on record. Over the past fifty years, natural disasters such as floods, droughts and wildfires have also increased by a factor of five1, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on an annual basis2. Ecosystem degradation now affects global trade, putting nearly 58 trillion USD at risk3 (two-thirds of our global economy).
This is why industry-led initiatives such as the Net Zero Banking Alliance, TCFD and TNFD, and transformational environmental regulations are driving action. The EU Green Deal and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)4 are noteworthy. The EUDR mandates that all exports and imports of commodities and their derived products (palm oil, soy, cattle, wood, cocoa, rubber and coffee) be free from deforestation and forest degradation. To meet targets and reporting requirements, the financial sector now requires data which are often owned by third parties and inaccessible. That’s where satellite imagery becomes essential.
Innovative solutions are available to lenders, insurers, reinsurers and other stakeholders. Rapid and timely insights from EO data help institutions monitor and set alerts on climate and nature impacts, risks, and opportunities for their clients.
Use cases are diverse and include:
- Deforestation monitoring and alerts on supply chains for commodities such as palm oil, soy, cattle, wood, cocoa, rubber and coffee.
- Natural disaster monitoring for fire, flood, droughts, pests, and diseases.
- Verifying client claims on improved practices (such as agrivoltaic set-up and regenerative agriculture) for preferential incentives and financial rates.
Due to their intuitive user interface and uncomplicated functionality, low-code EO platforms allow analysts to get rapid insights for their specific needs without seeking geospatial expertise. As an example, customers of Earth Blox in the insurance industry use the platform to regularly assess the likelihood of environmental risks such as severe flooding, fires, and hurricanes to underwrite claims. Learn how ForestRe gains competitive advantage using satellite data for insurance risk modelling in this case study.
The benefits of low-code EO platforms include for the finance and insurance sectors include:
- Growth acceleration: enabling the team to deliver 10x the amount of risk assessments without adding additional staff.
- Portfolio diversification and competitive advantage: effectively, rapidly and reliably estimating impacts and risks (in the case of the customer above, forest burn scars, wildfires, and drought) anywhere in the world, including for areas with limited or no field data.
- Reputational risk management: documenting decision-making and claims using verifiable EO data and transparent scientific and peer-reviewed methodologies.
- Reduced lead time: completing analyses in minutes (instead of days to months with conventional methods).