US technology developer IBM has launched a suite of environmental intelligence software that leverages AI to help organizations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks that may disrupt business.
The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite has been designed to help companies streamline and automate the management of environmental risks and operationalize underlying processes, including carbon accounting and reduction, to meet environmental goals.
The suite leverages existing weather data from IBM, as well as advanced geospatial analytics already in use by companies around the world. According to IBM, the offering is the first to bring together AI, weather data, climate risk analytics, and carbon accounting capabilities in one package.
Delivered as a SaaS solution, the suite aims to help organizations:
- Monitor for disruptive environmental conditions such as severe weather, wildfires, flooding and air quality and send alerts when detected;
- Predict potential impacts of climate change and weather across the business using climate risk analytics;
- Gain insights into potential operational disruptions and prioritize mitigation and response efforts;
- Measure and report on environmental initiatives and operationalize carbon accounting, while reducing the burden of this reporting on procurement and operations teams.
The suite delivers environmental insights via APIs, dashboards, maps and alerts that can help companies address both immediate operational challenges as well as longer term planning and strategies. For instance, the suite could be used to help retailers prepare for severe weather-related shipping and inventory disruptions, or factor environmental risks into future warehouse locations; and by energy and utility companies to determine where to trim vegetation around power lines or which of their critical assets may soon be at greater risk from wildfires due to climate change. Or the suite could be used to help supermarkets get a clearer picture of how refrigeration systems are contributing to their overall greenhouse gas emissions and prioritize locations for improvement.
Kareem Yusuf, general manager, IBM AI Applications, said, “The future of business and the environment are deeply intertwined. Not only are companies coping with the effects of extreme weather disruptions on their operations, they’re also being held increasingly accountable by shareholders and regulators for how their operations impact the planet. IBM is bringing together the power of AI and hybrid cloud to provide businesses with environmental intelligence designed to help them improve environmental performance and reporting, create more efficient business operations to reduce resource consumption, and plan for resiliency in the face of climate disruptions.”