AiDash Launches New Carbon Measurement Tool for Corporate Land Holdings

AiDash, a company using satellites and image processing software to help companies manage geographically dispersed assets in the face of environmental issues, announced a new carbon management tool, according to a press release.

The company claims that “innovation in carbon measurement and management … will help organizations unlock the untapped environmental value of corporate land holdings and mitigate the risks of escalating carbon credit pricing.”

The key to the claim is carbon offsets. A complex business that does take its share of knocks, the idea is that in order to lower humankind’s carbon footprint and maybe mitigate some of the likely oncoming disastrous impact of climate change, companies and people agree to a trade. Some entities will find ways to significantly reduce the amount of carbon they produce, or even lock down existing carbon to lower the collective footprint. Other entities can then pay for credits—environmental indulgences that forgive them of their climate sins.

The drawbacks are the possibility of double counting, using carbon reductions that would have otherwise still occurred, and the rising costs of carbon credits over time. But there is still potential good use to be made.

According to AiDash, “governments and businesses such as utilities, farming, mining, and timber can look to the carbon reduction potential of their own land holdings as a simpler and more affordable way to measure, control and implement this element of their carbon reduction strategy.” For example, planting trees could create carbon offsets that the owner—and there are many companies with CRE holdings that include land—could apply to its own business.

AiDash can apply satellite imagery and AI-powered image processing to survey holdings and “determine the amount of carbon captured in land, predict the potential to capture additional carbon and help businesses build plans.”

The approach would, in theory, allow carbon surveys to remotely examine holdings and determine the potential each property had to host carbon capture mechanisms and then to monitor them. Businesses could look at their inventories of properties, possibly smaller plots that appear here and there, and do the necessary analyses. What are the offset values of a particular plot versus other potential uses?

It also allows for documented reporting. “The solution not only provides measurements that meet carbon credit standards, but also continuous evidence to prove that credits are based on additional carbon captured and that carbon remains permanently captured in the ground, which is crucial for credible ESG reporting,” the company says.