The recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) revealed a massive credibility gap between government current policies and their net-zero goals. Even with full implementation of emissions targets set for 2030, the planet is expected to heat up by 2.4°C by the end of the century. This alarming gap has cast a dark shadow of doubt over the net-zero targets put forward by more than 140 countries, reflecting the vital need for the technology industry to step in and help transition the economy to net zero. 

Part of the concern and skepticism regarding recent government pledges of net-zero emissions is that environmental challenges are increasingly complex and demand new capabilities to achieve sustainable solutions to protect the environment and public health. Governments and the public sector must go beyond sustainable pledges and take bolder steps when rethinking environmental protection efforts. Saving our planet and overcoming environmental challenges will take years to accomplish; however, the role of implementing technology into sustainable solutions is one step closer towards tackling the current global crisis. 

Over the next few years, we’ll see the innovative use of IoT technology emerge as a force to fight a range of environmental issues by delivering tangible results measured by data analytics. The key approach to accelerating ecological impacts, transforming environmental protection efforts, and accomplishing sustainable goals requires the technology industry to invest in sustainable solutions by collaborating with government agencies and non-profit organizations. This article will walk through how that can become a reality: new approaches to combat environmental issues such as the combination of drones and AI technology solving waste management challenges and best practices for technology organizations collaborating with public sectors and government agencies. 

Drones and AI Technology at the Service of Environmental Battles

The immense waste management challenge is just one of the many environmental issues currently impacting our environment. The world is estimated to generate 2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually, and in the absence of meaningful intervention, global waste is expected to grow to 3.40 billion tons by 2050. The combination of drone-captured imagery with the latest AI technology can help solve unstable waste management by identifying and collecting waste in public waterways. Drones equipped with AI technology can detect pollution and fly over floating debris in waterways and send signals to sailing drones below, instructing them to clean up the waste and deliver it to a nearby sanitation facility. 

For example, the San Francisco Estuary Initiative (SFEI) is leveraging NVIDIA’S GPU-based resources and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to help an overwhelmed Bay Area water region – the largest estuary on the West Coast – understand what kind of pollutants are entering its streams and rivers. SFEI developed and evaluated a new method based on the use of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (drones) and machine learning to help measure the effectiveness of the method. 

The combination of drone imagery and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) allowed SFEI to analyze tens of thousands of images in a matter of hours to expand the spatial range and number of times they can perform trash monitoring throughout the Bay Area’s streams and rivers. The algorithm developed on a local GPU and then further refined on OCI, is a Tensorflow-based CNN (Convolutional Neural Network), which can identify trash in imagery and distinguish those targets from natural features. 

SFEI was able to execute drone flights and transmit the collected imagery into cloud-based resources, where they could then be further parsed and processed. As a result, SFEI was able to understand a set of key fundamentals such as how much trash enters our creeks, rivers, and coastal ocean and if this problem is getting better or worse. 

Best Practices for Technology Organization Collaborating with Public Sectors and Government Agencies

Throughout the technology industry, committing to sustainable practices is no longer a “nice-to-have” but a “must-do,” as the negative impacts of climate change are becoming more threatening. We can expect to see the technology industry undergo pressure to reduce their impact as well as implement their technical resources to help in the cause by collaborating with non-profit organizations and government agencies. As more technology organizations begin collaborating with government agencies and public sectors, it’s important to understand and consider the following: 

• The need to analyze the multifaceted impacts of the environment within their mission and operations
• The crucial role in identifying environmental issues most relevant to maintaining their effectiveness
• The need to implement a prioritized strategy to accelerate environmental remediations

The Deloitte Climate Framework is a great model to reference for technology organizations interested in collaborating with public sectors or government agencies to solve environmental challenges. The key is to take action on climate change in a way that both aligns with and advances organizations’ mission objectives. 

Additionally, government agencies must leverage their authority and resources to promote disruptive technologies and innovative financing partnerships to address the challenges posed by climate change. The administration’s targets will require innovation on the supply side, on the demand side, and in the meshing of supply and demand. 

Lastly, don’t just identify climate risks: Organizations must manage the risks they identify – both the preventable and the unavoidable. The journey to sustainability will be an uphill climb, and the public and private sectors must embark on it together. How quickly agencies can identify and prioritize capability gaps, and partners to help address them, will determine the impact and effectiveness of the U.S.’s climate trajectory over the coming decades. 

Consider the following use case for a successful collaboration: The Danish Climate Ministry, a governmental agency in Denmark, recently launched a CityShark project with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) high-performance computing to power a fleet of drones equipped with AI-guided cameras to identify and collect waste in public waterways. The WasteShark is paired in a network through a mounted camera using an oil-detecting algorithm and cloud-based image sensing on streaming data analyzed in a real-time analytic platform. By leveraging a fully vectorized database for maximum processing efficiency on complex sensor and location data, the Danish Climate Ministry team was able to instantly analyze images and obtain conclusions, allowing them to survey the entire harbor with a single flight, and immediately initiate the clean-up process. This innovative collaboration showcases a government agency optimizing the use of IoT technology and data analytics to accelerate new approaches in an attempt to fight waste management challenges. 

Innovation Creates Many Routes to Help Us Take Action

There’s plenty of additional innovative approaches and technology contributing to saving the environment, such as Descartes Labs using AI to detect and track wildfires through satellites to capture imagery, British scientist designing robot “jellyfishes” to explore the ocean and protect endangered coral reefs, and Heliogen developing solar power technologies with the use of AI to align panels to maximize the amount of energy produced. Now more than ever, the advent of new technology and innovations has the potential to help restore our planet and transform environmental protection efforts. The hunt for new and smarter ways to combat global warming will continue to rise, resulting in sustainable technology advancements. The technology industry investing in sustainable solutions through collaborations with public sectors will be key to unlocking opportunities and innovations and will be instrumental towards saving our planet.