AiDash, a leading provider of satellite and AI-powered operations, maintenance, and sustainability platforms, has recently launched its Intelligent Sustainability Management System (ISMS) to enable customers to meet biodiversity net gain standards (BNG) and increase cost savings by eliminating frequent land surveys that are currently performed manually. Below, Abhishek Singh, CEO of AiDash, and Stephen Marland, director of innovation at AiDash client National Grid Partners, discuss what this means for the future.
MPT: How did the Intelligent Sustainability Management System, or ISMS, come about?
Abhishek Singh: AiDash developed ISMS over a nine-month period, working closely with the National Grid Partners Innovation team. Organizations with large landholdings, as National Grid and other utilities, energy, water, and wastewater companies, face the challenge of using traditional on the ground surveying methods to accurately map the land type and understand and measure the biodiversity level of each habitat. The cost and process complexities of using these methods can often hinder the implementation of natural capital enhancement plans for progressive, environmentally conscious organizations.
MPT: What need do you see ISMS fulfilling in this market?
Stephen Marland: At National Grid, we are committed to improving the environmental value across our sites in the United Kingdom by 10 percent by 2026, from a natural capital and biodiversity baseline. It’s a crucial step in helping us achieve our regulatory obligations and enabling us to make our contribution towards addressing the biodiversity crisis and climate change.
Abhishek Singh: The United Kingdom’s Environment Bill legislating the BNG, when approved, would further strengthen the planning powers in England mandating at least the 10 percent net gain in biodiversity for all new developments and raise the imperative of land sustainability across many sectors. However, in a recent survey, 50 percent of utility and energy executives said increased process complexity is a hindrance to meeting sustainability goals.
MPT: How does ISMS fit into larger sustainability goals?
Abhishek Singh: Sustainably responsible organizations are struggling to find integrated operations platforms that can help them stay on top of their goals and meet the regulations within their sectors. Existing tools and techniques lack the ability to analyze historical data and make data-driven environmental improvements. Our new platform solves this problem.
The ISMS “Land” module would help customers reduce laborious fieldwork through the AI-backed image analysis for systematic mapping, planning, and assessing land enhancements, and quantify biodiversity to plan sustainable land development and restoration initiatives based on the environmental value of varying habitats. The GHG emissions are measured across sources like well pads and gas pipelines through the ISMS “Air” module.
Stephen Marland: Collaborating with AiDash’s satellite-powered Intelligent Sustainability Management System could enable us to make environmental surveys and audits, relatively seamless, while saving weeks of manual in the field work. This means we could efficiently leverage repeatable and transparent satellite data to design optimal strategies for enhancing the biodiversity across large areas of non-operational National Grid land in the United Kingdom and regularly monitor improvements while reallocating internal resources.
MODERN PUMPING TODAY, March 2022
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