With sustainability being a buzzword for many an enterprise, Google Cloud is looking to open up access to its Earth Engine offering to those companies focused on developing or monitoring projects aimed at sustainability.
Google Earth Engine, which has until now been offered to scientists, researchers and non-profit organisations, as well as the general public via its timelapses, is now commercialising and wanting to onboard business customers.
“Over the years, business and governments have been increasingly approaching us to accelerate their sustainability transformations,” noted Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, via a report from ZDNet this week.
“We’re helping companies with the responsible management of natural resources while also building sustainable business practices,” she adds.
The director adds that larger enterprises are facing increasing pressure from regulators when it comes to ramping up sustainability efforts, and Earth Engine can play a vital role in helping develop or bring these initiatives to fruition.
“We really want to accelerate the types of innovation that we’ve seen from the scientific and NGO community and bring that now to public and private sector users. If we’re going to address the challenges we face, we need all sectors of society to be empowered to do so,” Moore continues.
While access to the platform is now being made more widely available commercially, it has already been made available to a select number of large organisations, such as Unilever.
“Unilever is committed to achieving a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023. Using a geospatial platform that leverages Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud enables us to realize our ambition of creating a truly sustainable supply chain,” highlighted Andrew Wilcox, senior manager for Sustainable Sourcing & Digital Programs at Unilever, back in 2020.
For those worried that scientists, researchers and non-profits will now need to pay for access to Earth Engine, Google reassures that it will remain free to use for such customers.
