This project will allow us to prototype _Vitral_, an innovative AI-assisted platform for environmental intelligence to address the rapidly growing reporting requirements for corporate and financial services. This project directly addresses the critical need for businesses to access climate and nature data to meet incoming regulations by providing a novel easy-to-use and globally scalable solution. _Vitral_ will be a commercial prototype built on the already successful Earth Blox platform to mobilise significant corporate action. It will allow businesses to scale climate and nature-positive solutions by providing interoperable impact metrics in an auditable and scalable manner. _Vitral's_ innovation lies in the ability to apply AI technologies to assist in the aggregation and interpretation of geospatial data, and presenting results as intuitive outputs (while maintaining auditability and transparency). Industrial resource extraction accounts for half of global greenhouse gas emissions and over 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress. This overexploitation of natural resources poses significant risks to the global economy, over half of which depends on nature via ecosystem services. Alarmingly, only 1% of businesses currently understand their reliance on ecosystem services. New regulations are now being introduced to drive businesses towards more nature-positive and sustainable decision-making (e.g. The Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)). These regulations will require companies to quantify their impact on nature and climate and how nature and climate impact them. The challenge is that each organisation's impacts and dependencies on nature are unique, precluding a one-size-fits-all solution.Our motivation for this project is therefore to empower businesses to enhance their sustainability by making it easier to access quantitative geospatial insights. In so doing, we aim to see _Vitral_ accelerate the global transition towards Net-Zero and a Nature Positive future, and to address the Net-Zero competition theme, as set out in Innovate UK's "Building the future economy: Plan for action for UK business innovation, 2021-2025".

This project will spearhead EarthBlox's commercial launch. InnovateUK will support our team to address the technical challenges needed to commercialise and ensure global deployment and growth. The need for satellite data is global, expanding and transcends sector boundaries: it provides all decision-makers with timely intel on spatial-assets. Satellites and planetary-scale data now enable mapping of global changes (from deforestation, urban expansion, continental scale disasters), and modern instrumentation (atmospheric, land and ocean-based) reveal that we live on a fast-changing planet, leading to increased uncertainties and frequency of extreme events (droughts, floods, pressure on natural resources). To adapt and respond to these changes, planetary analyses are required and this is driving an explosive growth in Earth-observation missions (with 684 Earth-observation satellites now in operation, a 250% growth since 2014, Pixalitics 2019). While cloud computing now enables rapid data processing, harnessing the power of global satellite data still requires either coding skills, know-how or a hefty budget. Our motivation with EarthBlox (Patent filed) is to remove theses barriers to democratise the power of global satellite data and intelligence. EarthBlox's innovation leverages the power of cloud processing without the need for computer coding or high level Earth-observation expertise. It enables the processing of Terabytes of planetary scale geospatial data and the creation and download of actionable insights with unprecedented power and ease. It is "Lego for EO data processing". It offers full flexibility for users: novice users rely on pre-built EarthBlox solutions with simple instructions (workflows); intermediate users customise these workflows for particular needs; advanced users build entirely new workflows. Our prototype, tested in focus groups, already demonstrates how different users can exploit satellite data at the click-of-a-button, while allowing customisation on-a-par with expert users. This project presents excellent value for money: it builds upon previous investments (totalling circa £500k, the most recent being a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship, an Innovate UK ICURe award, in-kind support as semi-finalists of the Converge Challenge and SetSquared training in the Space and Satellite sector). It also leverages significant funding/in-kind contributions including: Google's support through its Alpha Commercialisation Programme, UNEP matched funding for this InnovateUK project, and a committed Weareumi loan. We have now been selected to pitch at EIE-invest (postponed to October), the premier technology investor showcase featuring promising innovative, data-driven high-growth companies. All these have traction only if this InnovateUK application is successful.