Expanding the Green Transition Information Factories

While the British Isles have similar physical geography, climate, soils and climate, France covers several different climatic regimes going from mid-latitude maritime in the north to mediterranean in the south, and all 3 nations are at different stages of the Green Transition/Net Zero journey. Nonetheless, they are all facing common challenges with air pollution, drought, methane emissions, urban heat islands and building roof-insulation-related heat losses and have abundant opportunities to install solar power farms whilst still permitting agricultural use of the land beneath the solar panels. In the UK it has been estimated that 14.65 GW is currently produced out of a total global capacity of 1.177 TW.

Engaging with an ever-increasing number of public, private and NGO stakeholders from the region (currently over 10), the UKIF consortium – composed of three companies from the region plus a Canadian partner – is developing EO-enabled capabilities to support decision-making in the following five Green Transition domains:

1. ENERGY TRANSITION – Bifacial & mixed-use PV Site Identification: Planning locations of solar rural farms using bi-facial photovoltaics by modelling the impact of surface albedo, aerosols and clouds on PV output power along with developing a decision-making tool for siting to avoid environmental impacts in sensitive areas of landscape (e.g. national parks). This capability will also consider opportunities for mixed-use PV, e.g. with extensive agriculture.

2. SUSTAINABLE CITIES – Urban Heat Islands & Building Heat Loss: Both are critical aspects of the green transition. The capabilities will build on using EO thermal infrared data, to enable focused insulation and energy reduction programmes and assess trends in urban heat patterns.

3. MOBILITY TRANSITION – Steet Level PM2.5: Monitoring urban air pollution, a major cause of respiratory and cardiovascular deaths, focusing on high resolution (≤10m) retrieval of PM2.5 with the AI training utilising dense coverage of in situ measurements systems in London.

4. FOOD SYSTEMS – Drought Predictors: This capability uses VNIR and TIR high-resolution imagery to develop indicators to detect drought conditions at high resolution for entire countries.

5. CARBON ACCOUNTING – Methane Point Sources: Detecting methane release from fugitive emissions using SWIR Sentinel-2 data. This capability will be highly scalable. In addition, a higher-resolution detection method will use data from the Earth Daily constellation.

Following a stakeholder consultation last spring, the phase 1 showcase with British and Irish stakeholders is under preparation for mid-November in Dublin.

Oceans are vital to economic systems through their roles in providing food, energy, and transportation. Nearly 40% of the world’s population depends on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods. 80% of international trade in goods is transported by ships. Europe has recognised the importance of a sustainable “blue economy” in alleviating the multiple demands on the EU’s land resources and tackling climate change, as well as the importance of working beyond the EU boundaries to achieve the Green Deal ambitions. Both Canada and Denmark have Green Transition strategies that involve the oceans. Named for the blue-green colour, the Cerulean Information Factory’s focus on the ocean reflects the need to connect the Blue and Green Economies for a successful Net Zero journey. Collecting and analysing requirements from many stakeholders, a project team of five organisations from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is developing EO-based capabilities for the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans, between Canada and northern Europe, including Greenland, in the following sub-domains:

1. MOBILITY TRANSITION: 

• The IMO Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System (POLARIS) integrates vessel ice class information with data from various ice charting services to compute a risk index to assess navigational safety and accessibility constraints for different types of ships.
• Ship Carbon Intensity Minimisation and Arctic Accessibility – route optimization tool algorithm that uses CII (Carbon Intensity Indicator) to minimise fuel consumption, ship emissions, and travel time, while maintaining ship safety in sea ice and icebergs. The capability integrates satellite-based ice charts as well as metocean conditions.

2. ENERGY TRANSITION – Offshore Renewable Energy:

• Potential for offshore renewable energy for site suitability assessment including solar, tidal, wave, and wind energy. The capability provides the users with interactive tools to access historical data and derive aggregated statistics based on user-defined parameters and constraints (e.g. AO, depth, time period, distance to markets).
• The harshness index integrates EO-derived parameters such as wave height, sea ice concentration, iceberg densities, temperature etc., to indicate the degree of environmental harshness and severity of a given location for site suitability assessment and planning (both for offshore renewable energy and aquaculture, see figure below).

3. FOOD SYSTEMS – Aquaculture:

• Site suitability assessment based on ocean health parameters using water quality data, and potential risks exploiting combined ocean and meteorological observations and forecasts.
• Monitoring systems for aquaculture (e.g. harmful algae blooms, pollution, eutrophication).

A Canadian stakeholder workshop was held in May 2024, and a European stakeholder workshop took place in October 2024.

The Baltic region faces distinct green transition challenges due to its unique geography and climate, which exacerbate the impacts of climate change. Rising air and water temperatures, particularly in the Baltic Sea, are happening faster than the global average, intensifying local environmental stress. Warming temperatures lead to earlier springs, affecting ecosystems and agriculture, while more intense and frequent heatwaves challenge human comfort and energy demands. The region’s extensive forested areas, critical to its economy and carbon sink potential, are at risk from changing precipitation patterns and forest health issues.

Reflecting the requirements from over 15 stakeholders (to date) in the region, the consortium of four companies from Latvia, Germany and Austria will provide five EO-enabled capabilities targeting four different areas of green transition:

1. SUSTAINABLE CITIES – Heat Islands Trend Analysis and Thermal Insulation of Buildings: Urban heat islands reduce the quality of life in cities. The Heat Island Trend Analysis capability uses downscaled Land Surface Temperature, NDVI and NDBI to provide urban planners and administrators with information on where heat islands occur and whether countermeasures are effective. The issue of ineffective resource utilisation due to poorly insulated buildings is to be tackled with downscaled Sentinel 3 and MODIS data by the Thermal Insulation of Buildings capability.

2. FOOD SYSTEMS – Climate-resilient Farming: Climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. The Climate-Resilient Farming capability uses Sentinel-1 data to provide farmers and insurance companies with information on crop damage per plot and on access restrictions for heavy machinery due to wet ground.

3. ADAPTIVE FORESTRY – Monitoring and Adaptation to Climate Change: More than a third of Lithuania’s surface area is covered by forests. To monitor the condition of these forests and to prevent illegal logging, forest owners need an overview of changes in tree numbers and vitality. The Monitoring and Adaptation to Climate Change capability uses Sentinel 1 data to simplify the identification of individual trees from space and allows the determination of their species, protection status, height, and health.

4. CARBON ACCOUNTING – Natural Capital Shares Management: Companies that cannot eliminate their emissions must offset the climate impact of their activities to become carbon neutral. The Natural Capital Shares Management capability provides users with information on the carbon sequestration potential and biodiversity metrics of specific plots of land.

The Baltic GTIF project is being implemented with Lithuania as a pilot country in the first phase and will be extended to Germany, Poland, Estonia and Latvia in the second phase.