Investments in environmental, social, and corporate (ESG) governance are going through the roof. Businesses of all sizes everywhere are being evaluated and rated based on their ESG performance by third-party specialists such as MSCI ESG Ratings, Sustainalytics, Bloomberg, S&P Global ESG, Moody’s ESG Solution group, and hundreds of others. These specialists measure the environmental and social credentials of businesses. These businesses then jockey for a position in prestigious lists such as the Corporate Knights 100 most sustainable corporations. Check out their list for 2022 to see the names that promise to decarbonize the world. The most influential investors and political decision-makers depend on such a list to understand the long-term economic value of a business. ESG Assets Under Management (AUM), currently about ~35 trillion, are expected to surpass $50 trillion by 2025. At last November’s COP26 conference, banks, insurers, and investors pledged $130 trillion to combat climate change by prioritizing green investing.
Whoa! Climate change might soon be under control (gender inequality will be history, and investor stewardship will peak with power between corporate shareholders and society rebalanced). I am not a skeptic, but let’s be honest — that is not likely to happen soon. Unless we bring the `E’ in ESG into our homes. Then we can, as individuals, make a difference with a small helping of technology.
The trouble with environmental issues is that they are too large, even for the world’s largest businesses to address. The intent of the businesses is not questionable, but the bottom line is: They cannot stop catastrophic events. Earlier this July, a part of the Marmolada glacier, the highest in the Italian Alps, broke loose and slid down the mountains due to rising temperatures. A few days later, another melting glacier in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan mountains triggered a massive avalanche. Rising ocean water in Fiji’s Serua Island is flooding villages, forcing residents to abandon their ancestral homes. The number of wildfires in the US doubled between 1984 and 2015, thanks to climate change. Last year, rising temperatures resulted in burning over half a million hectares of land in the European Union.
As individuals, we throw up our hands, knowing that our future is being buried. But we can do something about it by becoming more aware of our actions contributing to the climate crisis. One such project is the global community-driven Weather Underground which records climate conditions at a hyperlocal level. Weather Underground picks up real-time data from over 250,000 personal weather stations (PWS). It uses a forecasting model to provide rich and precise information for your exact location (see map below).
Source: https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap
To provide perspective, here is data from the World Meteorological Organization: There are about 10,000 official surface weather stations, 1,000 upper-air stations, 7,000 ships, about 1,100 buoys, hundreds of weather radars, 3,000 specially equipped commercial aircraft, 30 meteorological and 200 research satellites measuring atmospheric parameters every day. These are not enough.
The 250,000 PWSs are producing granular data that allows us to take individual — and immediate — corrective action. So instead of gaping in helpless shock at videos of collapsing glaciers, the responsibility of change falls upon each one of us.
These PWSs, meshed together on an Internet of Weather Things, are not cheap. But on the other hand, they are readily available (check Amazon). Some can cost anywhere between Rs 30,000 to Rs 55,000.
Low-cost, Arduino-based, Zigbee-driven, fully automated versions with GUI and web hosting are being designed. These weather stations can send the data to an IoT cloud, where the data can be stored, analyzed, and re-distributed. Zigbee is the ideal open standard protocol to lower the power consumption required for machine-to-machine data transmission. Arduino-based weather station IoT starter kits are available from Rs 950 (approximately US$12). These should be made mandatory for every building, garden, playground, and farm, private or public. In addition, governments should set up installation and data quality standards for these devices so that the data is dependable. As the density of these weather stations grows, more real-time actionable intelligence will be available, and each of us will know the exact corrective action we need to take.
Installing such Automated Weather Stations (AWS) has a broader impact. For example, take the case of crop insurance payouts. AWS data is typically applied within a radius of 10 to 15 km from the AWS for insured farms. Sometimes, farmers whose crops have been affected due to adverse weather have been denied insurance because the adverse weather that has affected their farm is not captured by the nearest AWS (to explore this fascinating topic that affects India, start here). These farmers have compelling reason to install an AWS.
Similarly, we need to get sensors in automobiles to transmit real-time micro-emission and weather data, along with their location, to a central data hub. The hub can constantly monitor, analyze and map conditions to provide prompts for corrective action.
Today, we use Google Maps for real-time information on traffic conditions everywhere on the planet. A simple mobile app provides intelligent prompts to take diversions to avoid congestions, provides accurate time-to-destination information, alternate routes, etc. This is community data put to good use. A similar effort must be put into bringing the ‘E’ in ESG into our homes.
