Earthly Automated Investment and Visualization Tools – Oliver Bolton, ClimateTech

This is texturing TV. I'm Bonnie Schneider for Tech strong TV and joining me now is Oliver Bolton he is the CEO of Earthly Oliver is joining me from London and it's really fascinating story about how Earthly got started and where it really stands in this emerging field of climate technology Oliver. Thanks for joining me, and I'd love to hear more about Earthly.

Yeah, thank you for having me and so Earthly is a platform that connects businesses with high integrity high quality nature-based Solutions. And you know our typical customer might be a company that's committed to Net Zero or a company that wants to come regenerative and give back more to the planet than they need to take to exist. And so yeah, we support businesses, you know looking to protect and restore our planet.

So how does it work? How does the platform start from beginning to end for the user? Yes, it's typically a larger customers come to us and I've already looked at their carbon analytics and they already know their carbon Footprints and they've you know, typically works on reduction strategies.

So they come to us with a very specific kind of need to support a nature-based projects for a certain amount of tons. And so what we do is we find projects that align with their values in the geographies that are relevant to them. And yeah, we you know connect connect them with the projects and then we help the monitor the progress of the projects over time and then we share back information about the the stories link to those projects that they can then share with their stakeholders and community.

What about the visualization tools? How can someone sort of get an idea of exactly what's happening with their nature-based solution that they're looking to give back towards? So one of the challenges that we've identified is actually Nature's quite abstract and you talk about a million trees.

It's being planted and it sounds great. But we you know, we have we find it hard to comprehend exactly what that looks like. So we've developed a 3D Island and on the island is a 3D visualization of the projects that you've supported.

So there might be a rainforest project to help seaweed a regenerative Farmland a bit of grassland and that's represented on the island. And the more that you support a project the larger it grows the larger the island grows. So suddenly it's a really kind of emotive and engaging way to see and follow your you know, your progress and and support of nature over time.

Takes a lifetime to really see the results of that. How did you come up with that idea of creating an island for the project? Really about you know, it's creating a visual.

Tool that people can be really proud of and typically what happens is people invest in projects and then they kind of forget about them. Whereas with the island the investment always stays on there. And so you have this kind of scenario where you want to add to it.

You want to grow your Island and you want to show a sense of progress and you know, it just helps accelerate, you know investments into these projects and you know takes people on your on your nature investment Journey. And now we've had some really positive feedback from the customers that are using it. And do you find that obviously climate check is such a merging area of so many people are in the sustainability space the space and and they want to be in it.

So how have you been able to keep up with demand and interest in Earthly? Yeah. I mean we have you know with like with any Marketplace, you know, we're constantly speaking to projects.

We're making sure we have Supply but one of the tools that we developed is a quality assessment tool so we can screen nature-based projects looking at the carbon biodiversity and social impacts. And we found automated ways to do this and what it's meant is that we constantly have a pipeline of high quality high integrity projects sort of coming through that have been mapped out that we can then offer to the businesses that we're working with and you know as we've grown up our clients we've grown the projects are working with them and kind of building up both sides of the marketplace at the same time. And how are you made aware of the projects and so many are happening around the world.

Yeah. We we have a research team who are constantly exploring and and you know discovering we have a lot of a projects that are now approaching us as we're kind of building up a reputation. We have a scientific Board of a experts who are recommending projects to us, but one of the main tools that we use is we have a machine learning python script the screens the public Registries of of Registries like Vera.

And they look for certain keywords and data points and create short lists of what we believe a high quality projects and then we don't go through and we conduct some more detailed project quality assessment. And on those shortlists is that machine learning? Was that something that you started once the company got going or is that something that you out of the gate you figured this is how we're going to do it.

Yeah. Nobody we build that over the last 12 months. So we we started two years ago and you know, it started off Much More Much More manual and we've you know, we've automated processes of over time as we've grown.

Yeah, there really is a lot of automation. Every company is looking to become more digital in what they're doing and when the clients are coming to you and they're looking for an investment in nature and they they want to make a difference. Is there one particular area that is attracting them more than others.

I think we're seeing more and more companies come to us with biodiversity being a key a key focus and and you know, so looking Beyond carbon, which is really exciting. Increasingly, we you know, we also have those that are looking at the social side and so like female empowerment is being a big sort of sort of trend area for us. But what's great is that people are kind of looking at the the full picture and you know, and and you know, ultimately business is want to make sure they're investing in these these high quality projects that are going to survive and thrive, you know over the decades ahead, you know with you know with with sort of locks in changing whether to be expected in years ahead.

mentioned the Automation that you're doing now, is there anything going? Like to do and and become a little more in the digital space and with Earthly that you're not doing now. Yeah, I mean we have we have an API to which allows customers to integrate nature Investments sort of within their business models connected to sales or to be used as rewards.

And so we we have plans to kind of expand that out and to you know to have a more intelligent API that can also show like granular co-benefits from the projects. There might be minutes of Education or injections delivered to a local community link to an investment. So that's something that we're planning to map out further.

And again with the 3D visualization. We want to support more interventions and we want to really kind of evolve that experience so you can explore the projects within that 3D environment. So we're spending a lot of time looking at kind of webgl Technologies and you know working out how we can kind of really push the push the bar and that area that is interesting.

I'd like to talk a little bit also about your background because you're an entrepreneur and what drove you to Space for climate Tech. Why did you decide? This is where I want to put my energy.

I think for me it was I've been an entrepreneur for 15 years now and I think which is all my career and for me, it's me why she took my previous business through the B Corp process back in 2015, and it was a founding ukb court and that really opened up my eyes for structuring a business for impact and for purpose. And and with Earthly, you know, I really wanted to create a company that had purpose at the heart of what it was doing and it was around the time of the birth of my son where yeah the real kind of cast this for me was thinking about future conversations with him. And at the same time.

I was kind of aware of the you know, the The Situation Room in regards to climate and biodiversity and I kind of Imagine This future conversation where he would challenge me and say you know that Dad you knew the severity of the situation what did you do and that really kind of triggered me and and so inspired me to you know to dedicate the rest of my career to having an impact in climate and biodiversity. That's that's a really great and the people that are coming to you to use Earthly. Do you find that they have a similar sentiment to that?

Yeah, it's a question. I always ask like, you know, what are the drivers for investing in nature? And you know, sometimes it's it's climate leadership.

It's a personal it's a personal passion from the CEO link to the company, you know, sometimes it's it's our competitors are doing this. We have pressure from our customers. So but but increasingly as well like you know, what companies are seeing is investing into nature can also have a return on investment whether that's increased sales, whether it's increased engagement, whether that's customer employee acquisition or attention and I think that's going to be the leader that's going to unlock, you know this and and engage the mass-market mains to companies who you know who can understand not only is this the right thing to do but actually it makes commercial sense as well.

So really hoping that that can be a leader to take things to the next level. That's great for the projects that you're you mentioned. Have you seen in just the short time that you've been doing it any technological advances in how let's say they're biodiversity project as being conducted or how we're trying to reduce waste of Natural Resources just from your own impression since you're sort of overseeing and you're you have an eye on so much that's happening globally.

What have you seen in the technology space that's advancing this cause Yeah, I mean that there's three things to call out and and you know, the first will be no surprise here is all of the geospatial technological advances that we're seeing. But specifically for biodiversity the two areas that we're most excited about a firstly Edna which is where you can take a water or a soil sample and you can actually see the species and the creatures within a 10 mile radius from that sample that through in the vicinity and if you take samples on a periodic basis, you can see if there's an increase or a decline in you know, biodiversity and then the other area which is really fascinating is bio Acoustics, which is essentially strapping a microphone to to a tree and listening to the insects listening to the keystone species the birds the bats and again you can track over time and see if they increase or decrease. I think those two technologies we have Pilots running with with project Partners this year a really exciting and we're you know, we're keen to bring in as much monitoring and verification that we can with the projects are working with That is so interesting, especially the bio Acoustics that you mentioned and I say that because people are on there whether they're using their apps or at home.

They listen to sounds of nature. So you always have the sound of the ocean or the sound of a forest or a natural fire going fireplace. I wonder if that's going to be the next thing the sound of the trees the birds I think now look within us.

I think it stirs up some kind of prime primary, you know promoted sort of instinctual kind of reaction with us and and again, you know, it's completely as he said the sounds that we're recording we're looking at then posting it through into the 3D Island, but it's fits with the bar Acoustics fascinating because you get that ongoing monitoring and you get the morning dawn chorus and It's um, it's it's amazing technology. And you know, we're really excited to be, you know to be people working right at the Forefront of biodiversity monitoring. So as Earthly that's you're the CEO of Earthly.

Are you working on any other projects in the climate tax space? No, I'm dedicated 100% you know to this project and you know, as I said committed the remainder my career to this space and we have a one gigaton golf or 2030. So removing a good Katana carbon by nature.

And so that's the you know, that's the big Focus for us and we're on a path to achieving that so just keeping our head down and and you know looking to grow the businesses who work with and grow the projects that we work with and you know, push the bar with regards to project quality and and projects Integrity, you know, help other projects sort of improve the way that they're doing things and you know maximize the good that we can do and speaking of growth, you know, when we're looking and the tech field 2022 and even the start of 2023. We've seen a lot of layoffs and tech companies. It seems to be more of a need for Tech workers in this climate and sustainability space and I was wondering how what's your opinion on that?

And if you do see that as a growing trend? I mean, I think look climate Tech has been less affected. You know that than other sort of tech areas and I think that's that's recognition.

First of the fact, this is a huge problem. That isn't going away. but I think you know secondly from our perspective the larger corporates that we're working with, you know, they've made public commitments and You know they need to.

Adhere to those those public commitments and and so you know, that means that you know, we're focusing on how can we get access to high quality projects of fair pricing? And but yeah, and I think I think there's yeah the understanding of the severity of the biodiversity and climate crisis is helped, you know, keep keep focus and momentum within a sector. Well Oliver, this is really fascinating what you're doing at Earthly, and I think it's connecting with nature as an investment and also the technology that's emerging from this process.

It seems that that's another way that's drawing people in and getting them more involved and wanting to invest responsibly so Oliver Bolton CEO of Earthly. Thank you so much for joining me on Tech strong TV. It's a pleasure speaking with you.

Thank you so much for having me.