Nithya: Welcome to Measure, Act, Track an educational video series
about the Environmental Insights Explorer.
I'm Nithya Sowrirajan, leading the go-to-market and operations
to cities as part of Google's Geo team.
Nicole: And I'm Nicole Lombardo.
I lead go-to-market strategies and city partnerships
for the Environmental Insights Explorer.
At Google, we build technology that helps people do more for the planet.
By organizing information about our planet
and making it accessible through technology,
we help people make more positive impact together.
Nithya: Our team uses geospatial data and technology
to create useful tools for cities
that help them turn Google data into environmental action.
Available at insights.sustainability.google.
it was built to help cities around the world
take meaningful steps towards climate action.
EIE provides ready to use emissions data for cities,
reducing greatly the time spent,
sometimes even months in emissions measurements
and jumping directly to planning and acting.
Nicole: Using the Environmental Insights Explorer,
cities can measure their current carbon emissions,
get suggestions on how to take action to reduce those emissions,
and learn more about how to design and implement data-backed
policy changes.
As we refresh the data in EIE year over year,
cities can monitor the effects of changes over time.
Nithya: In 2018, the U.N. reported that 55 percent of all people
were living in cities and projected that by 2050
that amount will rise to two thirds of the human population.
So it makes sense that cities are also the source
of 70 percent of greenhouse gases
and play a disproportionately large role in global climate change.
The good news is cities are also the most motivated
to create meaningful change.
Nicole: Cities around the world have already started using EIE
for climate action planning and policy making.
In Hartford, Connecticut, city leaders recently updated
their greenhouse gas emissions inventory with EIE data
to establish the city's Climate Action Plan
in partnership with local volunteers and city staff.
When officials in Mexico City were able to gather quantitative data
about building emissions from EIE, they realized that rooftop solar panels
represented the potential to generate over four megawatts of renewable energy.
Kyoto is using EIE
to inform their strategy for future solar initiatives,
which is a crucial aspect of their plan for achieving net zero
carbon emissions by 2050.
As you can see, there's already a global network of cities
using EIE in ways that are right for their own local needs.
In fact one of the most powerful aspects of EIE
is a connection to a community of people from cities all over the world.
We've also built partnerships with leading global coalitions
working to help cities fight climate change,
such as ICLEI--Local Governments for Sustainability,
the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and Ironbark Sustainability.
EIE is free to use for every city and local government
whether or not you are a member of these or any coalitions.
But through the partnerships with these organizations,
we've been able to improve EIE,
reach more city leaders and decision makers,
and participate in the global conversation
about city level climate action.
With EIE, we want to empower government staff,
consultants and activists to enact ambitious, progressive
and sustainable policies in order to have a collective impact
on the global climate crisis.
Nithya: Over the course of the next several videos,
you'll learn how to access and navigate EIE,
what kinds of data are available for cities,
what the data means, how to share it,
and ways you can help your city turn that data into action.
This video series will be most relevant for people like city planners,
sustainability advisors or other municipal employees
who already have a sense of how emissions data
is used for their city or require access to important activity data.
Government employees and consultants
can also request free access to the Insights Workspace
within EIE to access additional data.
Not all of the information discussed in these videos
will be relevant to every city,
and you may find that some features have changed over time.
Before we dive into how to use EIE,
let's talk about how this data is gathered.
EIE contains detailed,
measured data from the real world. And a set of modeling assumptions.
This is the same data used to power the familiar Google Maps experience
that billions of people use every month.
For example, we use information like aggregated location history data,
building outlines and types, and street level and overhead imagery.
When aggregated to a city scale, these sources contain useful information
for taking action toward a low carbon future.
We'll also cover this in depth in a later video in the series.
Now let's begin!