Welcome

After three special editions of Sphere (Natural Capital, Net Zero and Biodiversity), specifically targeted at the COP26 climate summit, we thought now would be a good time to look back on what has been a very unusual year and pick out some of the highlights. Despite the pandemic, we have continued to thrive, albeit in a slightly different working environment, which has been refreshing and frustrating in equal measure. As we approach 2022, we are busier than ever with a wide range of consultancy projects across the world and, excitingly, our first experience with distinct products and services that customers can buy. This throws up new opportunities and everyone here at Environment Systems is embracing the challenge.

Contents

Hybrid Working and New Office
EO4cultivar, COP26 and the Paris Peace Forum
Blankney Estates
Data Services
Due Negligence

Hybrid Working and New Office

Although we have always had remote workers, prior to the pandemic the majority of our staff were based in Aberystwyth. When the pandemic sent us into lockdown in 2020 everyone was forced to work from home and within days everyone was working well.

Suffice to say our productivity was pretty good and home working became a bit of a hit, especially during the summer months. As time went by, staff were regularly canvassed, and it soon became pretty clear that there would not be a full return to full office working. Therefore, during the summer, we started making preparations for a transition.

We have reduced our office space in Aberystwyth, with the transition being completed in September. This includes a new server room, and a large office space complete with 10 ‘hot desks’, two meeting rooms and a quiet room. Staff that want to come to the office to work, or for a meeting, can now book a desk, which comes complete with a double monitor setup, keyboard, mouse and webcam. There’s even a standing desk. It’s early days but the new arrangements seem to be working well and this looks likely to be the new normal.

In addition to Aberystwyth, we are maintaining our project office in Harwell and have announced plans to open an Edinburgh office in 2022; watch this space for more details!

EO4cultivar, COP26 and the Paris Peace Forum

Most definitely one of the highlights of 2021 was participating in COP26 thanks to the success of the UK Space Agency funded EO4cultivar project, part of its International Partnership Programme (IPP). Just as the conference took place, we are entering a new commercialisation phase in Latin America, building out of our commercial hub in Colombia. This is an exciting time for our team with a suite of products, a new website, active presence on Facebook and Instagram, and exhibition stands at two major agricultural shows. We’ll be reporting more on this in the next issue of Sphere.

At COP26 we took part in the ‘Earth Information for Climate Action: Perspectives from the UK Presidency’ plenary. Our Principal Consultant, Jacqueline Parker, joined the panel to provide valuable insights and learning gained from taking climate action through EO4cultivar. A wide range of questions came from the audience, and Jacqueline emphasised why increasing resilience to climate change is necessary; not only on productive agricultural land, but also in the surrounding more natural landscape that provides many of the resources on which agricultural production is dependent. Earth observation, she explained, helps to answer an important question when we are seeking to implement nature-based solutions to help address environmental issues, where to take action to get the best outcomes.

EO4cultivar was represented at another session at COP26, ‘In Space We Trust: Powering inclusive local climate action with space technology and human connections’. Jose Francisco Zuñiga, the president of ASBAMA, one of our project partners in Colombia, described how the banana sector now has the confidence in using satellite derived data for decision making in both agronomy and regional policy for sustainable land management.

Elsewhere in the Green and Blue zones, some of our work from around the world was showcased on Pufferfish globes, interactive globes that visitors to the conference could explore to learn about climate data and satellite solutions.

Steve Keyworth also went to a Scottish Government COP event linked to our Civtech project, with a reception in Edinburgh Castle followed by a full day of presentations and meetings in Glasgow.

Meanwhile, EO4cultivar was showcased through ‘Earth Observation for Resilient Agriculture,’ one of the 80 projects selected as ‘Solutions For Peace’ featured at the Paris Peace Forum.

Blankney Estates

Blankney is a long-established estate in the heart of Lincolnshire, with 14,000 acres of farmland growing a wide range of arable crops for both human and animal consumption. A subsidiary, The British Chlorophyll Company, produces chlorophyll products for the natural colours markets. In 2021, Environment Systems has been monitoring the grassland used for feedstock to provide regular data insights to help manage the crop.

The feedback from this growing season has shown that the maps accurately display the logical variation and are actively helping them make in-field management decisions. Calibrating the maps by ground truthing with the use of their in-house laboratory, to show chlorophyll variation, leaf tissue and irrigation patterns, has given them a high degree of confidence. They have also helped pick up rapid growth and transient nutrient deficiency, as well as quantify the impact of soil variability for field selection and improve the return of investments and inputs.

“The experience of working with Environment Systems has been a good one, to be able to develop and confidently interpret the data we received and actually quantify what it meant was refreshing and beneficial to our grass management,” said Tim Harper from Blankney Estates.

Data Services

The capabilities of our Data Services continue to grow. Thanks to faster methods of accessing historical Sentinel data, our scaling ability has allowed us to process a 4-year backfill of both optical and radar data over a Caribbean island within a week.

Last year we reported that we had surveyed and processed data from over a million fields. That sounds impressive but it was not very informative. When we got together recently we thought it would be better to be a bit more precise. The data captured and processed in 2021 from Sentinel satellites we calculated amounts to 462m km². Given the global land area is approximately 148m km² we were all pleasantly surprised. “What if we calculated the total for the amount of processed data that we can currently offer, both for this year and historically,” piped up one of the team. So we got to it and came up with a figure of over 1,000,000,000 km² which is 6.5 times the global land area.

There were smiles all round, certainly a highlight.

Due Negligence

Although we reported on this ground breaking project in the last edition of Sphere, when we were looking for the highlights of 2021, we reckoned this was one. The Due Negligence report was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund and prepared by 3Keel and Environment Systems. It presented an analysis of the potential consequences of the UK’s obligation which makes it mandatory for large companies to carry out due diligence to ensure that there is no illegal deforestation in their agricultural and forestry supply chains. The report drew a line in the sand because it concluded that it was likely that the regulations in the UK’s Environment Bill would have to be revisited, and that the way forward was not sustainable. What’s more, the first major deal announced at COP26 was a pledge by leaders from more than 100 countries to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. There may be a way forward after all. We shall have to see.