The second day of the Geospatial World Forum 2021 started with parallel sessions on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and circular economy, AEC and Digital Cities, Location and Business Intelligence, among other key subjects.
The SDGs are highly dependent on geospatial information and emerging technologies as they provide the primary data and tools to connect people to their location, place and environment, and measure ‘where’ progress is not being made, especially at local levels.
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The sessions on “SDG & Circular Economy” had hours-long discussions on a collective approach to meet the SDGs and how geospatial technology is supporting circular economic practices.
Greg Scott, Inter-Regional Advisor, Global Geospatial Information Management, United Nations, said, “Where’ are our problems, where are the challenges, where do we intervene and how do we do that? That’s where location and geography become really important in supporting particularly the statistical approaches of reporting into the SDGs.”
“There is other element that is global-to-local. We have global agendas but what is really important is local implementation. So, our work is to report to the SDGs and how to make it reach to the community level,” he added.
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The transformative nature of the 2030 Agenda requires new and innovative data sources and an integrated approach to implement the SDGs, so that “no one is left behind”.
Tim Trainor, President, International Cartographic Association, USA, said, “To address the SDG’s through the circular economy, information is needed to determine what is possible, and then to identify the challenges that are there, so the strategies for mitigation can be considered.”
While explaining about the importance of making maps, what cartographers consider and why we trust them over automated processes, he said, “Supporting automated process to get cartographers out is challenged by factors like inconsistent coverage, varying quality, different definitions, and variable temporal time stands. But a cartographer notices these kinds of things and sorts through issues and makes decisions based on various consultations. So, it’s a choice, and a decision that has to be made as you go through the process.”
The increasing number and diversity of data types often have location as one of their characteristics to generate data with geospatial information. In order to do that, you need to be working on criteria, methods, procedures, and processes, so that you can apply that and manage the data.
Technological innovations to connect at the community level
The second session of the day was on technological innovation and how we can connect at the community level to implement the steps needed to meet the SDGs. According to IPCC2019, insecure land tenure affects the ability of people, communities and organizations to make changes to land that can advance adaptation and mitigation. But how do we manage land better? The whole of humanity has specific vested interests. Amy Coughenour Betancourt, CEO, CADASTA Foundation, said, “The way I understand is that the circular economy creates an economic, social and natural habitat by doing these three things: designing out waste pollution, keeping products insurance, and regenerating natural systems. There is no circular economy or bio-economy without the sustainable and equitable use of land and natural resources.”
She highlighted that land tenure security underpins the success of many SDGs and environmental policy initiatives. This can be done by adopting the following measures:
- Protection of forests
- Conservation
- Biodiversity
- Sustainable land use
- Climate smart agriculture
The conversation about circular bio-economy essentially involves replacing industrial sources for producing food, materials and energy with biological sources. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has specifically put out a report saying that the insecure land tenure affects the ability of people to make changes to land. Advanced adaptation of climate change is an issue around regenerative or regenerating natural systems in a way that the people living on the lands act as the guardians and stewards of the land.
“If we want to talk about a circular economy, we want to talk about the natural systems aspect of it. We must talk about land and resources rights. We must talk about how we are going to formalize that. And of course, land tenure security most of the SDGs, and these elements of conservation, sustainable land use, etc.,” Betancourt added.
Enabling circular economy practices
Geospatial technology, complemented by advances in digital technologies, especially the combination of mobile, machine-to-machine and data analytics, will play a big role in enabling circular economy practices.
Cathrine Armour, Chief Customer Officer, UK Hydrographic Office, said, “By 2030, we are hoping with the new standards, new technology communications and routine satellite movements, we will be able to reduce the carbon footprints. Because 3% of the world’s carbon comes from the maritime shipping industry, and we have got our goal to work upon.”
The third session of the day was on “Social Innovation and Collaborations Towards Circular Cities”, in which Rudiger Ahrend, Head – Economic Analysis, Data & Statistics, OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, France, said that to adequately inform policy making, data needs to:
- Capture the scale of people’s everyday lives
- Help to assess results of policies and monitor progress across places and over time
- Support an evidence-based dialogue across levels of government and sectors of society.”
Meanwhile, Michael Groves, Founder & CEO, Topolytics, UK, explained about waste mapping technology and how data science, machine learning plays an important role in it.
There are different ways the material is defined and the problem is different companies and organizations identify and define those materials in different ways. So they are using data science and machine learning in order to develop a better version of what the material actually is. He said, “And we could do that because it is defined, measured and regulated somewhere in some way so the information data related to the material is available and we could use it to map.”
“We are working across the supply chain because we think the only way to build that better version of truth is to collaborate across the supply chain with organizations that are the source of the material to those who are moving or processing or doing something to the material as well as with the governments and cities who have a stake in the system working better,” added Groves.
