Driving innovations in tech to strengthen climate resilience with Climate Engine and Google Cloud
- Keywords:
- sustainability
The more access we have to data about the Earth and climate, the better we can monitor, map and predict changes in carbon emissions and the risks of a climate change-related events such as a wildfire, drought, and flood.
As our clients’ lead partner in the transition to a net-zero world, BMO is proud to be working with Climate Engine, through their SpatiaFi application, built on Google Cloud, to explore innovative geospatial technology that can help to better manage climate risks and take advanced action toward sustainability.
Historically, accessing and evaluating data driven insights about the Earth has required a great deal of complexity, time, coding and computing, making real-time analysis nearly unattainable. For the past several years, Climate Engine has been working to make this critical data more accessible, usable, and actionable by building a spatial finance product, “SpatiaFi”, built on Google Cloud.
SpatiaFi is on the frontier of FinTech as a near real-time, forward-looking application that combines geospatial data with financial theory. The application unlocks the power of satellite data, world-leading Earth science, and AI modelling and provides the ability to combine in with location-specific economic and asset data to assess how changes in one could, or are, affecting the other in past, present, and future scenarios.
The application holds promise for governments and businesses worldwide to assess and enhance the sustainability and resilience of their operations and climate resilience. For financial institutions, the data not only provides more efficient and effective risk analysis, but it has the potential to accelerate the integration of sustainability into finance and banking.
BMO continues to drive innovation by leveraging these types of advanced digital tools to better understand the impacts of a changing climate. Integrating climate considerations into business strategy and risk management is a key focus of the BMO Climate Institute and using technology to understand and assess future climate trends and identify risks and opportunities for the bank and its clients is core to BMO’s Digital First model and sustainability strategy. SpatiaFi will be a critical component in helping the bank, and our clients, navigate the transition to net-zero emissions by 2050.
“Our Climate Ambition is to be our clients’ lead partner in the transition to a net-zero world. By harnessing data and information to better understand how our clients are operating, we can do some incredible things with finance to help them progress towards their net-zero and climate resilience goals. By understanding the unique context of how climate change could impact each of our clients, we can work with them to better inform decision making and strengthen their resilience.”
- Michael Torrance, Chief Sustainability Officer
Our commitment to sustainability is guided by our Purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, for our clients, colleagues and the communities we serve. You can check out the BMO Climate Institute, our centre of expertise bridging policy, science, and finance, for information on how we’re working to advance climate resilience. And, read more about our impact in our 2022 Sustainability Report and 2022 Climate Report.
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Michael Torrance
Chief Sustainability Officer
Michael Torrance is Chief Sustainability Officer of BMO Financial Group and is passionate about sustainability, especially as it pertains to corporate governance an…(..)
View Full Profile >The more access we have to data about the Earth and climate, the better we can monitor, map and predict changes in carbon emissions and the risks of a climate change-related events such as a wildfire, drought, and flood.
As our clients’ lead partner in the transition to a net-zero world, BMO is proud to be working with Climate Engine, through their SpatiaFi application, built on Google Cloud, to explore innovative geospatial technology that can help to better manage climate risks and take advanced action toward sustainability.
Historically, accessing and evaluating data driven insights about the Earth has required a great deal of complexity, time, coding and computing, making real-time analysis nearly unattainable. For the past several years, Climate Engine has been working to make this critical data more accessible, usable, and actionable by building a spatial finance product, “SpatiaFi”, built on Google Cloud.
SpatiaFi is on the frontier of FinTech as a near real-time, forward-looking application that combines geospatial data with financial theory. The application unlocks the power of satellite data, world-leading Earth science, and AI modelling and provides the ability to combine in with location-specific economic and asset data to assess how changes in one could, or are, affecting the other in past, present, and future scenarios.
The application holds promise for governments and businesses worldwide to assess and enhance the sustainability and resilience of their operations and climate resilience. For financial institutions, the data not only provides more efficient and effective risk analysis, but it has the potential to accelerate the integration of sustainability into finance and banking.
BMO continues to drive innovation by leveraging these types of advanced digital tools to better understand the impacts of a changing climate. Integrating climate considerations into business strategy and risk management is a key focus of the BMO Climate Institute and using technology to understand and assess future climate trends and identify risks and opportunities for the bank and its clients is core to BMO’s Digital First model and sustainability strategy. SpatiaFi will be a critical component in helping the bank, and our clients, navigate the transition to net-zero emissions by 2050.
“Our Climate Ambition is to be our clients’ lead partner in the transition to a net-zero world. By harnessing data and information to better understand how our clients are operating, we can do some incredible things with finance to help them progress towards their net-zero and climate resilience goals. By understanding the unique context of how climate change could impact each of our clients, we can work with them to better inform decision making and strengthen their resilience.”
- Michael Torrance, Chief Sustainability Officer
Our commitment to sustainability is guided by our Purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, for our clients, colleagues and the communities we serve. You can check out the BMO Climate Institute, our centre of expertise bridging policy, science, and finance, for information on how we’re working to advance climate resilience. And, read more about our impact in our 2022 Sustainability Report and 2022 Climate Report.
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