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#TECH: IBM unveils AI-driven software that anticipates and responds to climate risks

KUALA LUMPUR: IBM announced the release of a suite of environmental intelligence software that leverages AI to help organisations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks that may disrupt business, more easily assess their own impact on the planet, and reduce the complexity of regulatory compliance and reporting.

Extreme weather, climate action failure and human-led environmental damage were cited as the top three most likely risks for businesses over the next ten years in the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2021 where companies face climate-related damage to their assets, disruptions to supply chains and operations, as well as increasing expectations from consumers and investors to perform, which is why businesses need actionable environmental insights to address these challenges. However, current methods are often cumbersome and complex. Many require intensive manual labour, climate and data science skills, as well as computing power.

"The future of business and the environment are deeply intertwined. Not only are companies coping with the effects of extreme weather disruptions on their operations, they're also being held increasingly accountable by shareholders and regulators for how their operations impact the planet," said IBM AI applications' general manager, Kareem Yusuf in a statement.

The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite aims to help companies streamline and automate the management of environmental risks and operationalise underlying processes, including carbon accounting and reduction, to meet environmental goals. Leveraging on existing weather data from IBM, the solution uses one of the most advanced geospatial analytics that is already in use by companies around the world, and new innovations from IBM Research.

IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite is a SaaS solution designed to help organisations monitor disruptive environmental conditions such as severe weather, wildfires, flooding and air quality and send alerts when detected.

It is the first solution that brings together artificial intelligence, weather data, climate risk analytics, and carbon accounting capabilities in this way, allowing organisations to spend less resources curating complex data, and more on analysing it for insights and taking action to improve operations.

"IBM is bringing together the power of AI and hybrid cloud to provide businesses with environmental intelligence designed to help them improve environmental performance and reporting, create more efficient business operations to reduce resource consumption, and plan for resiliency in the face of climate disruptions," added Kareem.

The suite also makes predictions on potential impacts of climate change and weather across the business using climate risk analytics to gain insights into potential operational disruptions and prioritise mitigation as well as response efforts. It measures and reports on environmental initiatives and operationalises carbon accounting while reducing the burden of reporting on procurement and operations teams.

Delivers environmental insights via APIs, dashboards, maps and alerts, the suite helps companies address both immediate operational challenges as well as longer term planning and strategies. For instance, the suite could be used to help retailers prepare for severe weather-related shipping and inventory disruptions, or factor environmental risks into future warehouse locations, energy and utility companies to determine where to trim vegetation around power lines or which of their critical assets may soon be at greater risk from wildfires due to climate change, or help supermarkets get a clearer picture of how refrigeration systems are contributing to their overall greenhouse gas emissions and prioritise locations for improvement.

The Environmental Intelligence Suite can also be integrated with IBM's broader software portfolio for additional efficiencies across business operations – including IBM Maximo Application Suite to help companies protect and extend the life cycle of their critical assets as well as help build more sustainable and resilient supply chains.

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