EO for Carbon Market Forum ESA/ESRIN Frascati, Italy 03 to 05 October 2023

GeoVille actively participated in the First EO for Carbon Market Forum at ESA/ESRIN Frascati, Italy from 03 to 05 October 2023 organized by ESA’s Science, Applications and Climate Department with support from the European Commission DG CLIMA and Equinor.

The event gathered the main stakeholders in the field of compliance and voluntary carbon markets with a wide heterogeneity of backgrounds: European institutions, investment banks, insurance companies, carbon accreditation bodies, ESG rating, academics, EO services providers, NGOs, etc. Constructive discussions led to conclusions on the main opportunities and challenges to be addressed NOW using EO tools to meet carbon emission reduction targets set-up by the European/International policy and financial framework.

GeoVille presented its strategic innovative path since several years “Towards EO-integrated operational services in support of standardized GHG public reporting and forest carbon trading” followed by a panel discussion within Session 5: Carbon projects using EO/Europe. We highlighted our main findings from the implementations of a series of initial REDD+ projects, the first European EO-based LULUCF monitoring system in Türkiye to key R&D projects led by GeoVille such as SMART-CO2, GHG-KIT, BREATHE for carbon emission and removals from Above-Ground-Biomass changes and wildfires, AI4TREES as well as related operational services such as the new Copernicus Land Monitoring Service CLC+ LULUCF Instances, the ESA GDA Climate Resilience activities, or the new Heat Adapt service linked to the ESA Green Transition Information Factory (GTIF).

One of the take-home message from GeoVille’s perspective is that the new legal EU policy framework provides an opportunity to take action now to deploy a standardized, cloud-based EO-integrated Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) system for the operationalization of a LULUCF prototype at pan-European level in support of public GHG reporting, with direct benefits expanding to the private carbon market.

We are already looking forward to the second edition of the EO for Carbon Market Forum next year!