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Corporate sustainability and carbon markets: The role of data science

  Every Earth Day we hear from companies around the world about their sustainability efforts - the gallons of water they have saved, the reductions in energy use, the systems they have converted from fossil-fuel to renewable energy, the ecosystems they have restored and, more recently the amount of carbon they have offset. On the face of it, these are amazing and hopeful numbers - the very fact that corporations are paying so much attention to sustainability and the environment is testament to the fact that consumer and citizen pressure is yielding results. In fact, with every successive year, it seems that companies and organizations are able to sequester more carbon, minimize greenhouse gas emissions and thus mitigate climate change.     What allows companies to make these claims - especially with respect to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions? The way that most companies claim these credits is through carbon markets or “cap and trade” programs. In these programs, a community or a no

Partnership Announcement: Data Week with General Assembly

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  We are excited to partner with our friends   @generalassembly   for Data Week — a   free virtual summit May 17-21   filled with workshops and panel discussions to help you harness data to tell compelling stories and uncover trends!   Click here to check out the schedule & RSVP today!   

Let's talk Climate and Data Science - free webinar on March 25th at 10.30 am PT

  What is climate tech? How much is the market worth - hint it's in trillions of dollars. How has it grown over the last decade? What are the trends driving the adoption of data science, AI and machine learning in the climate science space? What are the jobs like and what skills are required to work at the intersection of data science and climate? Join us for a lively discussion on this topic on March 25th !

Interview with Women in Clean Technology and Sustainability

  It was an honor and a pleasure be interviewed by Women in Clean Technology and Sustainability (WCS) as their member of the month. WCS is a non-profit organization headquartered in California that fosters community and networking among professionals in the green economy and has members from all over the United States and the world. We had a wide ranging discussion that covered the inspiration behind Ecoformatics, the opportunities for jobs and startups at the intersection of data science and clean technology and where we as a company can help. Read excerpts of the interview below or check out the entire interview at WCS' website here ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ECOFORMATICS IS YOUR BRAINCHILD, WHAT DOES IT DO? Ecoformatics was born out of an unmet need that I discovered while working as a data scientist and environmental engineer for several entities. The planet is facing so many challenges. At the

Data Science in Clean Technology: Looking back and looking forward to 2021

  Happy 2021 everyone! The year certainly started with a bang - if there’s one thing we can’t say - it’s that January has been a boring month.   With the change in administrations in the United States, we’ve seen several changes in climate and clean technology policy which will have significant impacts on the state of the market, startups in the field, funded research and technology developments. And this is likely to extend to the use of machine learning, AI, smart sensors and the other aspects of data science in clean technology. So, let’s take a quick look at what happened at the intersection of data science and clean technology in 2020 and what the prospects for 2021 look like.   Looking back at 2020 :     2020 of course, is the year like no other - divided between pre-pandemic and what happened as the pandemic took hold globally. So, how did that influence the trends in clean technology and the application of data science in the different sectors?   Pre-pandemic, there were some c

Data Science for the Grid, Renewables, Buildings and the Energy Sector

  It's time for our last two events for us in 2020 - what a crazy year it's been!  Continuing our theme of exploring data science in different clean technology sectors, we're doing to be focusing on the energy sector this month.   On Friday, December 18th at 2 pm PT, we'll be holding a free webinar exploring the market and opportunities for data science in the energy sector - with a focus on renewables, the grid and buildings.     And then, on Sunday, December 20th at 11 am PT, we'll host a hands-on workshop where we'll look at the types of problems in the energy sector where data science is being applied, what data sources are useful and where to find them and how do we integrate physics based models and machine learning into our solutions. 

Data Science for the Energy-Food-Water Nexus

  One of the most interesting aspects of working in clean technology is the interaction between different sectors in the space - the Food-Energy-Water nexus, for example.   What is the food-energy-water nexus? Well, not being in the Star Trek universe or any other science fiction arena, we’re definitely not talking about black holes of energy where food and water go to die :)! What we are talking about when we talk about the nexus between different clean tech sectors is - how do these sectors interact with each other? How complex are the interactions and can the relationships between them be described? In the case of the energy-water-food nexus, we’re exploring the interactions between the energy, water and food sectors. For example, we need water to grow food and produce energy, but energy is also needed to pump out groundwater and to process food.   Just for fun, let’s take a look at some numbers on the food-energy-water nexus from the UN and FAO. Let’s start with the biggest one - a