The commodities market is benefitting from a new solution that monitors climate risks and emissions in its supply chain, thanks to a project co-funded through ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) 4.0 programme. The SMOCGEO product from Sust Global applies machine learning methods to space-derived data to provide both long-term and near real-time monitoring, providing insights to support sustainability in the market.

Weather and other climate-related events can have a significant impact on commodity prices. Commodities market intelligence firms are therefore keen to access information on global patterns of climate activity and their corresponding effects on commodities prices, enabling customers to predict business disruptions and adapt their operations accordingly. Despite increasing availability of climate data, the challenge has always been to access information that is both timely and forward-looking – something that Sust Global sought to address in its Sustainability Monitoring of Commodities using Geospatial Analytics (SMOCGEO) project by applying machine learning to satellite data.

How climate events affect commodity prices

Commodities such as raw materials or agricultural products have supply chains that are highly exposed to the effects of climate change, such as wildfires, flooding, drought or cyclones. 

For example, when Taiwan's total rainfall in the first quarter of 2021 was 22% lower than its average, some areas of Taichung faced water supply cuts for two days every week. This included Taiwan’s leading semiconductor producer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which uses 150,000 tons of water every day in the process of making semiconductors. TSMC produces 92% of the world’s most sophisticated chips, so the lack of water caused a shortage of new devices that incorporate them, such as smartphones and other smart devices. 

Financial markets need to be able to take into account risks, including those linked to climate change, when they place a value on assets in order to support informed decision-making. Related to this, companies, banks, and investors have to comply with emissions reporting standards and frameworks, such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), set up by the Financial Stability Board in the US. Cheaper and more up-to-date information on emissions are therefore highly desirable.

Delivering timely emissions data

Commodities supply chains include industries that emit high levels of emissions, especially mines and smelters. However, until now, methods of gathering emissions data for greenhouse gases such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) have been both expensive and backwards looking, relying on statistical sampling from physical site visits or data that is 6 to 12 months out of date. 

Sust Global has tackled this by fusing satellite data with geospatial data and machine learning techniques to transform complex climate data into meaningful information for corporates and financial institutions. This provides customers with high quality physical climate risk exposure and emissions data on an asset-by-asset basis. 

To monitor emissions, SMOCGEO uses data from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on the Sentinel-5P satellite, which monitors both SO2 and NO2 emissions. It then applies satellite-derived technology to improve the cadence and resolution of forward-looking climate risk datasets. For example, using wildfire detection sensors from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra and Aqua satellites helps increase the resolution of its predictive models by 16 times compared with existing solutions. Data is made available on a weekly or monthly basis. 

New indicators on global activity and sustainability based on satellite and machine learning technologies, such as factory activity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, are also available. 

Josh Gilbert, CEO of Sust Global, says: “Through the SMOCGEO project, we have been able to commercialise satellite-derived data and serve it to multiple customers. ESA’s support has been critical to our early success as a start-up, and has helped us to bring cutting-edge sustainability insights and analytics to market.”

With the project now complete, the product is being used by paying blue chip customers, whose feedback is being incorporated into further development. Sust Global’s cloud-based technical infrastructure enables analysts to intuitively interact with millions of data points across the globe, turning raw data into operational business insights.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has joined the Global Alliance for Sustainable Energy as it works with stakeholders to achieve its target to boost commercialisation for a green and digital Europe.

Society is currently experiencing a green transition, which is revolutionising business models, technology innovation and use, consumption and offering of applications, and sharing of knowledge. Space can offer sustainable and commercial solutions for a decarbonised, green economy. 

The energy sector is at the start of a pathway of exponential improvements:  space and digital technologies play a relevant role to support policy, decision making and green investments, and overall enable purposeful transformation of the energy sector and its transition to circular economy.  In particular, hybrid terrestrial-satellite 5G networks have a strong potential to support such green transformation for the energy utility sector and beyond, enabling green transition in key vertical markets.

The objective of the Global Alliance for Sustainable Energy is to foster and promote sustainability along the entire renewable energy value chain with a particular focus on environmental, social, governance and circular economy pillars. Joining the alliance will offer ESA new opportunities to establish collaboration frameworks to unleash the potential of space assets to contribute to the energy transition and deliver net positive socio-economic and environmental impact at scale.

ESA’s Agenda 2025 outlines the challenges ahead as the agency seeks to maintain and grow Europe’s role in the space economy. Its vision declares “To meet our ambitions for a green, digital, safe and inclusive Europe and world, we need to accelerate the use of space in Europe.” To this end, ESA recently launched three accelerators to unite European space actors to collectively put their strengths and excellence to work to drive the use of space. “Space for a Green Future” will support not only living and working towards a more sustainable life on Earth, but also aid decision makers in reaching carbon neutrality by 2050  and offer sustainable and commercial solutions for a decarbonised and green economy. It will add value to ESA’s role as a leader of space technology and applications, as well as in developing next-generation architectures.

“I’m pleased to be working with the Global Alliance for Sustainable Energy to realise the potential of space to enable the transformation of the energy sector and its transition to a circular economy. This is a great example on how ESA is promoting integrated space applications to play a key role in sustainable development and green growth. This collaboration will pave the way to the Space for a Green Future Accelerator, where public and private actors will join forces demonstrating the value of space in delivering green benefits in the vertical markets, including the energy sector.“ says Rita Rinaldo, Head of the Partner-led and Thematic Initiatives Section, ESA Space Solutions.

Through its Business Applications programme, ESA’s Telecommunications and Integrated Applications (TIA) Directorate is supporting businesses from every area of the economy that involves space-related applications including in sustainability. 

‘‘Collaboration with users and potential stakeholders is key for ESA to promote pioneering technical and business space solutions supporting a green transition. Joining the Global Alliance for Sustainable Energy will enable us to address core industry challenges that will enable us to deliver a real, measurable benefit to society, businesses, and the economy,’’ says Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications at ESA.

Find out more about ESA's part in the Alliance on the member page here.

Together with DLR (German Aerospace Centre) and ESA BIC Bavaria, ESA Space Solutions organised the 19th Edition of the ESA Investor Forum which took place in Berlin from 16-17 May 2022. Cutting edge technology met Europe’s investment ecosystem and institutional thought leaders gave key notes and panel discussions on essential space-related topics.

The ESA Investor Forum is the high-profile event for space-related investment opportunities and connects start-ups and scale-ups from the ESA network with European investors. The international meeting takes place on a regular basis to boost large-scale investments in space technologies. 

Berlin, the capital of Germany, is one of the most vibrant start-up hubs in Europe, attracting German and international talent. Over 60% of venture capital invested in Germany goes to Berlin-based start-ups.

In preparation of the ESA Council Meeting at Ministerial Level (CM22), the ESA Investor Forum showcased the work done in promoting innovation in Germany and Europe by the ESA Business Incubation Centre (BIC) programme. Start-ups in the fields of connectivity, mobility, new space and industrial automation presented how space technology will revolutionize our society and our way to make business.

The event took place over two days. The first day comprised presentation and panel discussions on how to better support space-related innovation. The ESA Investor Forum brought perspectives from entrepreneurs, institutions, private venture capital and public capital markets. 

Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director General, stated “The ESA Investor Forum in one of the key platforms delivering on the market ambitions of ESA’s Agenda 2025, enabling new space companies to fuel their growth through private finance leaping beyond the support provide by ESA and Member States through projects and institutional budgets.”

Germany's space-related successes like DCubed, OroraTech, Lilium and Reflex Aerospace provided their perspectives. Following a long-lasting tradition of hardware developments in Germany, these companies are references for any space entrepreneur that would like to accept the challenge and become part of one of the future’s largest industries.

“Hardware is HARD”, Patrick Nathen, co-founder and VP Product at Lilium stated at the event. The hardware route is significantly more difficult than the software one followed by many innovative entrepreneurs nowadays, however it is the way to deliver truly transformative societal innovations.

Private investors stated that, although the road ahead will be bumpy, pace is, undoubtedly, one of the largest industries of the future, and significant capital deployment will be necessary. 

“We need incentives to make easier mobilising more capital intro space innovation”, said Joram Voelklein, investment partner at Alpine Space Ventures. And despite the goal of many private investors to ensure an IPO, “becoming publicly listed is another chapter in the story of a company, and it can be counterproductive if you are not ready for it”, said Niels Tomm, representative of the Board at Deutsche Börse.

The second day concentrated on start-up and scale-up pitching and interaction between entrepreneurs and investors. 22 start-ups and scale-ups pitched their solutions to an audience of investors in two different sessions competing for the awards of best pitch in the start-up and scale-up categories. The winners were:

• KTW Technology as best Scale-up (looking for series A investment or later)
• Klaus Space as best start-up (looking for seed financing)

DLR presented on stage their vision towards the incubation programme. Dr Walther Pelzer, Member of the Board of Directors of DLR announced their commitment to double the budget allocated to the ESA BIC Programme.

Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications said “It is ESA’s ambition, in collaboration with Member States and stakeholders to provide the basis, frame and motor for Europe’s space ventures to be amongst the best in the world. Together we are accelerating the use of Space in Europe. Space telecommunications have been at the forefront of commercial space for many years, and we can say there has never been a better moment to invest in connectivity and space.”