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A DIGITAL EARTHUrgency and Opportunities Eva Gladek
[email protected] the Earth
DG Connect, June 4th, 2020
Index1. Introduction2. Global urgency3. Need for new tools4. Cases
a. Science Based Targets
b. Financial Risk Assessment
5. A Digital Earth 6. Charting the Path7. A Call to Action
INTRODUCTION
Metabolic’s mission is to transition the global economy to a fundamentally sustainable state
CONSULTING THINK TANK VENTURES
URGENCY
Exponential times
Foreign Direct Investment
1998
US
Dolla
rs(B
ILLI
ON
)
17500
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
18001850
19001950
2000
Water Use
Km3 Y
r -1
17500
2000
4000
6000
18001850
19001950
2000
Paper Consumption
Tons
(MIL
LIO
N)
17500
50
100
150
200
250
18001850
19001950
2000
Population
Peop
le (B
ILLI
ON
)
17500
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
18001850
19001950
2000
Total Real GDP
1990
Inte
rnat
iona
lDo
llars
(1012
)
17500
15
30
45
18001850
19001950
2000
Damming of Rivers
Dam
s (TH
OUS
AND)
17500
4
8
12
16
20
24
28
18001850
19001950
2000
Fertilizer Consumption
Tonn
es o
f Nut
rient
s(M
ILLI
ON
)
17500
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
18001850
19001950
2000
Transport: Motor Vehicles
Num
ber (
MIL
LIO
N)
17500
200
400
600
800
18001850
19001950
2000
Atmosphere:CO2 Concentration
CO2
(ppm
v)
17500
300
340
360
18001850
19001950
2000
320
280
Climate: Nothern HemisphereAverage Surface Temperature
Tem
pera
ture
Anom
aly
(OC)
1750-0.5
0
0.5
1.0
18001850
19001950
2000
Ocean EcosystemsFi
sher
ies F
ully
Expl
oite
d (%
)
17500
20
40
60
80
100
18001850
19001950
2000
Terrestrial Ecosystems: Loss of TropicalRain Forest and Woodland
% o
f 170
0 Va
lue
17500
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
18001850
19001950
2000
Atmosphere:Ozone Depletion
Loss
of T
otal
Colu
mn
Ozo
ne (%
)
17500
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
18001850
19001950
2000
Climate: Great Floods
Deca
dal F
lood
Freq
uenc
y
17500
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
18001850
19001950
2000
Global Biodiversity
Spec
ies E
xtin
ctio
ns(T
HO
USAN
D)
17500
10
20
30
18001850
19001950
2000
Beyond zone of uncertainty (high risk)In zone of uncertainty (increasing risk)
Boundary not yet quantifiedBelow boundary (safe)
PLANETARY BOUNDARIESA safe operating space for humanity
Source: Steffen et al. Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet, Science, 16 January 2015.Design: Globaia
dive
rsity
Geneti
c
dive
rsity
Func
tiona
l
Phosphorus Nitrogen
CHANGECLIMATEENTITIES
NOVEL
OZONE DEPLETION
STRATOSPHERICINTE
GRITY
BIOS
PHER
E
FRESHWATERUSE
BIOGEOCHEMICALFLOWS
OCEAN
ACIDIFICATION
ATM
OSPH
ERIC
AERO
SOL
LOAD
INGLAND - SYSTEM
CHANGE
Source: Rockstromm et. al, Stockholm Resilience Centre
Beyond zone of uncertainty (high risk)In zone of uncertainty (increasing risk)
Boundary not yet quantifiedBelow boundary (safe)
PLANETARY BOUNDARIESA safe operating space for humanity
Source: Steffen et al. Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet, Science, 16 January 2015.Design: Globaia
dive
rsity
Geneti
c
dive
rsity
Func
tiona
l
Phosphorus Nitrogen
CHANGECLIMATEENTITIES
NOVEL
OZONE DEPLETION
STRATOSPHERICINTE
GRITY
BIOS
PHER
E
FRESHWATERUSE
BIOGEOCHEMICALFLOWS
OCEAN
ACIDIFICATION
ATM
OSPH
ERIC
AERO
SOL
LOAD
INGLAND - SYSTEM
CHANGE
Planetary boundaries
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
EUROPE
AFRICA
MIDDLE EAST
ASIAOCEANIA
CENTRAL AMERICA
IRRIGATION (1,47 billion m3)
INDUSTRY (0,399 billion m3)
DOMESTIC (0,23 billion m3)
11 %
18 %
12 %
7 %
25 %
13 %
20 %
6 %
15 %
1 %4 %1 %5 %
2 %
16 %
11 %
1 %
39 %
29 %32 %
60 %
67 %
13 %
6 %
6 %
6 %
6 %
2 %2 %
1 %
16 %
4 %
26 %
3 %
8 %
FOOD (12 BT)
INDUSTRIAL MINERALS (2,5 BT)
CONSTRUCTION MINERALS (30,5 BT)
FEED (10,3 BT)
NON-FOOD CROPS (0,02 BT)
WASTE WATER(1.500 km3)
CHEMICALS (1,03 BT)MEDIUM-TERM STOCK
(2,36 billion tons)
LONG-TERM STOCK(32,1 billion tons)
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS (5,02 BT)
FIBER (0,02 BT)
TRANSPORT (1,85 BT)
OTHER (6,51 BT)
ANIMALS (0,15 BT)
15 %
MINERALS(33 billion tons)
FRESH WATER(2.1 billion m3)
ORES(15,6 billion tons)
BIOMASS(24,8 billion tons)
FOOD WASTE (2,19 BT)
METAL (0,218 BT)
PLASTIC (0,226 BT)
OTHER (0,365 BT) DUMPED (0,71 BT)
LANDFILLED (1,275 BT)
COMPOSTED (0,21 BT)
RECYCLED (0,41 BT)
INCINERATED (0,35 BT)
OTHER (0,365 BT)
PAPER (0,407 BT)
ORGANIC (0,88 BT)
NON-HAZARDOUS INDUSTRIAL (1,2 BT)
HAZARDOUS INDUSTRIAL (0,4 BT)
CONSTRUCTION WASTE (1,4 BT)
AUTOMOTIVE WASTE (0,083 BT)
WOOD (1,1 BT)
METALS (7,38 BT)
DISPERSED (28,7 billion tons)
SHORT TERM STOCK)(1,01 billion tons) MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE
(3,4 billion tons)
NON MSW WASTE(7,8 billion tons)
FORESTRY (2,35 BT)
OIL (4,37 BT)
GAS (2,84 BT)
COAL (36,89 BT)
FOSSIL FUELS(44,1 billion tons)
ORE RESIDUES (4,7 BT)
THIS IS HOW LINEAR THE GLOBAL ECONOMY ACTUALLY IS:
The Global Metabolism Flow that was conducted by Metabolic in 2010 shows that we have extracted an estimated 71,8 billion tonnes of material from the Earth to fuel the global economy. These include: biomass (food, feed, forestry, and other), fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil, and other), ores, minerals (industrial and construction). Out of these: • Almost 11% is wasted prior to use (food and industrial waste). • An estimated 18% of approximately 3,4 billion tonnes of global Municipal Solid Waste is recycled or composted. An additional 10% is incinerated. The remainder is lost.
LEGEND:Biomass (food, feed, forestry, and other)
Fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil, and other)
Ores
Minerals (industrial and construction)
Fresh water
www.metabolic.nl@METABOLIC HQ
TOTAL GLOBAL MATERIAL FLOWS, 2010• Out of the total annual solid waste collection of 11,2 billion tonnes per year, only an estimated 6,2% is recovered in a form that has high utility for future use (recycling or composting). An additional 33% is recovered in a form that has low-medium utility for future use (downcycling or incineration).• Aside from these solid materials, the other largest “lost” flow is untreated wastewater: 80% of domestic and 70% of industrial wastewater streams remain untreated (184,4 km3 and 279,3 km3 respectively).
This immense material throughput and the inefficiencies of each stage of materials’ and products’ lifespans and the overall speed at which they are extracted are obviously too large and call for a radical rethinking of how the current system is designed. The linear “take, make, waste” model of production-consumption systems is self-evidently unsustainable, with the operation of some key industries being primarily responsible for the major biospheric and human wellbeing issues.
Reducing material throughput, increasing efficiency gains, and extending the useful lifespan of materials and products (both within a single product's life cycle and across product cascades), and closing resource loops is essential for fixing the global metabolism and changing the way the current economic system is functioning.
The global material flow: 2010
A systems approach
1. All problems stem from a smaller number of root causes.
2. Exponential challenges can be addressed by exponential solutions.
3. Using systems theory, we can find leverage points for lasting change.
4. Taking a systems approach requires deeper analytics and new kinds of tools
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
CASE 1: SCIENCE-BASED TARGETS
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
Life Cycle Assessment
Assessing the environmental footprint of a product is challenging:
• A standard Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the state of the art in environmental impact assessment, has been estimated to cost 30 - 60K per product.
• Supply chains are notoriously complex and untransparent.
• Even if companies have access to their impact data, they often don’t wish to share it.
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
State of the art, but insufficient...
Water stress 2019 WRI, Wikimedia Commons
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) misses key factors:
• Impact relative to system limits
• Impact based on space, time, or context (doesn’t distinguish between water withdrawals in water abundant and water scarce areas)
• Product design & system design
• Doesn’t include any social metrics
• Is based on average product lifespans and usage rather than product-specific insights
There are absolute limits to the planet’s carrying capacity.We need to develop measurement systems to monitor these earth systems, and to ensure that we don’t overshoot our budgets.
We need to develop and measure ‘Planetary Budgets’ for companies, countries, and investment portfolios.
AGRICULTUREBIOMASS
0 USED & COMMITTED OPERATING SPACE SYSTEM LIMIT
FORESTRY
FISHERIES
MINERALS
FRESHWATER
LAND USE
NITROGEN
NATURAL RESOURCES & CYCLES
METAL ORES
INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS
CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
OIL
FOSSIL FUELS
ORES
NATURAL GAS
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
Pathway forward: Contextual, Science-Based Targets
These targets must be assessed geo-spatially
Science-based targets for impacts on land, water, and biodiversity are inherently contextual.This pilot project completed in partnership with WWF and others pioneered the development of science-based targets for Alpro’s almond and soya supply chain.
7 SETTING SCIENCE BASED TARGETS FOR NATURE
Figure: Location and key input and output information of the selected almond farms.
LEGEND:
Natura 2000
Nature protection areas
Water areas sensitive to nitrogen pollution
Detail: water bodies
Ebro’sDirectional flow
Gandesa
Caseres
Tortosa L’ampolla
Ascó
Xerta910- EBRO EN XERTA
906- EBRO EN ASCÓ“Measurement Station: Ebro en Ascó (May 3rd, 2018)” • pH 8.14• Conductivity (20°C) 532 µS/cm• Nitrates 7 mg/L• Ammonium 0.04 mg/L
“Measurement Station Ebro en Xerta (May 3rd, 2018)”• pH 8.13• Conductivity (20°C) 516 µS/cm• Nitrates 7.4 mg/L• Ammonium 0.08 mg/L
Herbicides (2 kg/ha)
Almond Biomass (4,500 kg)
Biomass Yield (1,500 kg/ha)
CO2 Eq (2.4 kg)
Grey Water (185 m3)
Total Green Water (3.7 m3)Total Blue Water (0 m3)
Synthetic N Fertiliser (96 kg)Organic Fertiliser (0 kg)
Phytosanitary Products (0.5 kg/ha)
Almond Biomass (1,700 kg)
Biomass Yield (500 kg/ha)
CO2 Eq (10.9 kg)
Grey Water (510 m3)Herbicides (1.7 kg/ha)
Total Green Water (4.7 m3)Total Blue Water (0,8 m3)
Synthetic N Fertiliser (283 kg)Organic Fertiliser (3 kg)
Phytosanitary Products (4.3 kg/ha)
FARM 1
Herbicides (0 kg/ha)
Almond Biomass (2,000 kg)
Biomass Yield (1,000 kg/ha)
CO2 Eq (596 kg)
Grey Water (0 m3)
Total Green Water (2.5 m3)Total Blue Water (0 m3)
Synthetic N Fertiliser (0 kg)Organic Fertiliser (0 kg)
Phytosanitary Products (0 kg/ha)
FARM 1: DRY, ECOLOGICAL, ADULT (2 HA)
FARM 2: IRRIGATED, CONVENTIONAL, YOUNG (3.4 HA)
FARM 2
FARM 3
FARM 3: DRY, CONVENTIONAL, ADULT (3 HA)
Translating land-use boundary from landscape to farm level
Habitats
Biophysicalparameters
Plan for optimizingconservation
farm-levelinterventions
Stakeholderengagement
Implementation
Data collection &indicator development
Landscapeassessment
Plan for optimizingconservation and
farm-level interventions
Assess interventionswith stakeholder and
implementation
Monitoring
20001990
2018
Spatial Prioritization
RestorationProduction-focused agricultureConservation agriculture
2010
Determine priority areas forrestoration and production
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
METABOLIC CITIES PROGRAM
CITIES HAVE MANY GOALS
NEIGHBORHOOD A
POPULATION:
15,695BUILT FORM:
LOWRISEUNEMPLOYMENT:
16%
NEIGHBORHOOD B
POPULATION:
18,425BUILT FORM:
HIGHRISEUNEMPLOYMENT:
11%
NEIGHBORHOOD C
POPULATION:
10,380BUILT FORM:
LOWRISEUNEMPLOYMENT:
9%
Goals are city-wide. Neighborhoods are different.
METABOLIC CITIES PROGRAM
Neighborhoods within a circular city can serve different purposes within the sustainability agenda depending on their characteristics.
THE METABOLIC CITIES PROGRAMTHE METABOLIC CITIES PROGRAM
Impacts vary tremendously by spatial contextA DIGITAL EARTH
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
CASE 2: FINANCIAL RISK ASSESSMENT
Environmental impacts pose financial risks
Traditional risk assessment models aren’t able to capture long-term, nonlinear risks.The short time horizon of traditional risk assessment models mean long-term, non-linear risks are missed.
Innovations in environmental risk modeling are needed - based on dynamic systems models and scenarios
SLOW-BUILDING DE-ANCHORING POINT-IN-TIME
Time
Risk
Risk
Risk
Time Time
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
Systems modeling can help us understand risks from environmental impacts
Systems modelling can help us identify critical tipping points in complex systems.
These tipping points are where nonlinear risks occur.
C
AMAZON FOREST
SOIL CHARACTERISTICS
FOREST CHARACTERISTICS
ANTHROPOGENIC PRESSURES
Agriculture
PastureCrop
Logging
Gold mining
Tree population
Grass population
Atmospheric GHGs
CLIMATE CHANGE
Biodiversity
Forest Fragmentation
Carbon stock in soil
Forest Fire
Soil microbial communities
Drought
C02
Tree populationTree population
Precipitation
Temperature
C
AMAZON FOREST
SOIL CHARACTERISTICS
FOREST CHARACTERISTICS
ANTHROPOGENIC PRESSURES
Agriculture
PastureCrop
Logging
Gold mining
Tree population
Grass population
Atmospheric GHGs
CLIMATE CHANGE
Biodiversity
Forest Fragmentation
Carbon stock in soil
Forest Fire
Soil microbial communities
Drought
C02
Tree populationTree population
Precipitation
Temperature
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
Financial risks aren’t limited to climate change
WWF asked us to estimate the financial risks to asset managers resulting from environmental impacts in the Blue Economy in the Baltic Sea region.
€0
Total Port Asset Value Loss
€10 Bil.
€25 Bil.
€40 Bil.
Total Revenue Loss€35 Bil.
€30 Bil.
€20 Bil.
€15 Bil.
€5 Bil.
20152021
20272033
20392045
20512057
20632069
20752081
20872093
2099YEAR:
WE NEED NEW KINDS OF TOOLS
A DIGITAL EARTH
Steering Spaceship Earth
A DIGITAL EARTH
• We would never try to fly a plane without a functioning control panel. Yet we consistently guide global economic activities and make policy decisions without sufficient control and feedback systems in place.
• The need for finer-grained and more real-time insights has become particularly pressing as human activities have become relevant at the scale of planetary systems.
• A Digital Earth model could provide an integrated platform for the different kinds of tools we need.
Buckminster Fuller’s Geoscope A DIGITAL EARTH
A half century ago R. Buckminster Fuller - distinguished mathematician, pioneering inventor and 21st century visionary - realized that humanity’s long-term success or failure would depend in large part on our ability to:
• “Find effective ways for all humanity to see total Earth”
• Gather & map an inventory of the world’s resources, human trends, and needs
• Design “dramatic educational tools” to promote “World Literacy re: World Problems,” including “dramatic indication of potential solution[s]”
In 1962, R. Buckminster Fuller published plans for a, “giant, 200-foot diameter...miniature earth - the most accurate global representation of our planet ever to be realized.” The Geoscope would be a massive 3D educational environment, using an array of computers and databases to display real-time and historical data on nearly any world situation.
A DIGITAL EARTH
“The complete census-by-census of world population history changes could be run off in minutes... The total history of transportation and of world resource discovery, development, distribution, and redistribution could become comprehendible to the human mind, which would thus be able to forecast and plan in vastly greater magnitude than heretofore.
“The consequences of various world plans could be computed and projected. All world data would be dynamically viewable and picturable and relayable by radio to all the world, so that common consideration in a most educated manner of all world problems by all world people would become a practical event.”
The Digital Earth Vision
A DIGITAL EARTH
• In a 1998 speech, Al Gore described a future where all of the world’s citizens could interacted with a computer-generated Digital Earth.
• This idea clearly built upon Buckminster Fuller’s Geoscope plan - bringing it into the digital era.
Still a long way to go
• Many elements of a Digital Earth vision have been realized through projects such as NASA’s World Wind, Google Earth, and many others.
• However the full vision of an interlinked, broadly accessible, collaborative, and heuristically queriable digital environment as envisioned by Buckminster Fuller, Gore, and others has yet to be realized.
A DIGITAL EARTH
• A truly high fidelity Digital Earth model would by definition need to be the size and complexity of the entire earth.
• What are the key functionalities we need from such a tool?
• How do we meaningfully narrow down its scope and complexity?
What should we prioritize?
A DIGITAL EARTH
CHARTING THE PATH
Metabolic’s Pulse Project• In 2016, we began an internal
research and ideation trajectory called “Pulse” to investigate:
• available open data
• the technical requirements of putting together a Digital Earth platform
• the key questions it should ideally answer
• the potential partners for such a project
CHARTING THE PATH
Interlinking existing tools• Massive undertaking - needs
to be coordinated with the resources of many orgs
• We decided on a piece-meal strategy to build smaller components focused on different sub-sets of the system designed to be interoperable - with the idea that they could later be linked together.
• Key focus: clarifying the types of predictive modeling that this tool could provide: the kinds of questions we need it to answer, the scenarios we need to be able to explore.
REPAiR - Spatial Material Flow Analysis
CHARTING THE PATH
REPAiR - Spatial Material Flow AnalysisCHARTING THE PATH
Spatial Stock Analysis: Urban Mining Tool CHARTING THE PATH
The State of the World Report
The SotW is an annual study that investigates the health of the planet in relation to our global economy on an annual basis. It combines (1) a global spatial analysis of material stocks and flows, with (2) sectoral deep dives that map key value chains and their context-specific impacts.
The SotW aims to:
• Monitor and model the global metabolism on an annual basis in as granular and open-source a way as possible.
• Radically enhance collective intelligence on the state of our planet, and the impacts economic activity has upon it.
• Link where and how critical social and environmental impacts are connected to economic activities and decisions.
CHARTING THE PATH
Open data can bridge the gap between global monitoring and local decision-making. Over time, the SotW aims to fuel an open data alliance:
• Generating a network of open and interoperable data platforms that decision-makers in policy and industry can use to monitor resource consumption at the global, national, and subnational level.
• By making global monitoring systems interoperable with local dashboards - e.g. city dashboard - local leaders can fine-tune their strategies to critical indirect impacts and externalities.
• Enabling business leaders and policy-makers to take a cross-sectoral approach to measuring direct and indirect impacts and setting Science Based Targets for specific value chains.
The State of the World ReportCHARTING THE PATH
CALL TO ACTION
• Form a new alliance of public, private, and academic institutions for the creation of a Digital Earth.
• The EU Comission is the most appropriate party to lead this effort. This needs to be public infrastructure - not locked behind doors.
• Clarify the core functionalities that we collectively want to see in a Digital Earth platform.
• Define protocols for making data and tools interoperable - this is a critical barrier. Current splintered standards lead toward silos.
• Build a new data economy that is based on open sensing networks and tools: publicly available and not privatized.
• The EU is a good place to initiate this project, but it should be designed to be globally inclusive and garner participation from all nations.
• Research on the integration of environmental and social data.
• Engineer mechanisms and incentive structures to encourage the opening of private data which is currently held in a black box (APIs, smart contracts, measures to secure intellectual property rights, credits or rewards for participation).
• Prioritize the acquisition of granular, context-specific, real-time data (material passports, sensors at waste facilities, environmental sensors).
Key steps we propose
CALL TO ACTION
