Big Data Forests

As the first digital transformation – sustainability story, I have chosen the story of TREEO, which had its pilot project carried out in the rainforests of Borneo by the German non-profit Fairventures Worldwide and the startup Bridge17.org.

TREEO is a mobile phone application giving small farmers the possibility to measure each individual tree’s diameter and keeping track of their position, growth and economic value over time. This and harvesting recommendations help farmers move to regenerative reforestation and away from destructive monocultures or complete deforestation. Reforestation has been found to be a cheap and effective strategy to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere, but because of the nature (pun not intended) of forests, it is much harder to get accurate data about them, compared to, say, a wind farm. The increased transparency and accuracy of forest-tracking also has the benefit of providing micro-investors and customers with hard data to make more accurate financing and purchasing decisions. If you've already fired up your app store, Treeo is still under development, so if you like the sound of it and want to help reforestation now, you can donate here.

Personally, I found that using artificial intelligence to digitize a very primitive resource, trees, is a great example of digital transformation. My takeaway is that reducing information asymmetry between investors, farmers, and well, nature, is an important step in helping the first two make more informed, sustainable decisions.