Forestry data analytics company Treemetrics has developed a new platform that is designed to help forest owners to adopt forest certification and more transparent auditing of management practices.
The project, which has taken two years to develop, is being supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Enterprise Ireland. It uses state of the art satellite and drone imagery processing to provide trust and transparency for forest certification and the forest carbon certification market.
“Forest Carbon offsetting is a rapidly emerging process that forest owners and large enterprises are utilising to help reduce the levels of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. Investors are demanding quality carbon offsetting projects with new levels of data integrity. The new platform leverages Treemetrics’ precision measurement system to reduce investment risk and increase overall adoption of this important mechanism,” said Enda Keane, founder and chief executive of Treemetrics.
“Satellite imagery and analysis tools have a major role to play in building trust in both forest carbon and sustainable forest management certification processes. Our goal was to deliver a technology solution to enable increased climate – smart forest management adoption.”
Global forest certification standard PEFC Global, which certifies 790 million acres of forestry worldwide, supported Treemetrics to ensure the system meets the needs of their certificate holders internationally.
The announcement was welcomed by Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail, Damien English.
“Treemetrics is a fantastic example of an innovative Irish company using digital space data, that is freely available to all people living in Ireland through our membership in the European Space Agency, to ensure the sustainability of raw materials on earth. The recent report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which found that harmful carbon emissions have never been higher, highlights the urgency in developing innovative technologies to tackle climate change,” he said. “It is heartening to see Irish companies like Treemetrics playing their part in helping to reduce greenhouse gases by utilising space-data innovation for forest owners in tackling carbon emissions.”
Founded in 2005 by Mr Keane and Garrett Mulloly, Treemetrics has worked in more than 40 countries, developing a forest monitoring platform that effectively replace traditional methods of managing forests. It captures and analyses forestry data to help enable forest owners and managers to maximise sustainable production and profitability.
