How AI Can Help Save the Planet
Can AI technology help with something bigger than us, like saving the planet?
Every day, artificial intelligence (AI) creates fantastic opportunities worldwide. As AI continues to improve in different areas, all its capabilities are coming together. We're talking about the emergence of big data, stronger AI algorithms, an open-source community for tools, and hardware advancement. With more people working on AI than ever before there is a lot of innovation being made in a short amount of time.
As a result, AI has now been propelled out of research labs to reshape our way of living, from enhancing our phone security to dominating the online world, navigating cities, and more.
But can AI technology help with something bigger than us, like saving the planet? That's what we'll find out in this blog.
In 2021, the UN issued the world's most dire climate warning: a code red, meaning we can expect more intensified climate disasters, health crises, and biodiversity loss if we make no significant change in the way we live.
While we still struggle to find solutions to reduce environmental impact at a large scale and achieve a circular economy, AI has been helping us take big steps for the cause. Here are a few things AI can help with in the future to save the planet:
Monitor Changes In The Environment
With various breakthroughs and developments in today's technology, it comes as no surprise that AI is taking the world by storm. With many different applications, it has now become a tool that can be used in an effective way to combat climate change, helping us make more strategic decisions.
In 2022, UNEP's World Environment Situation Room (WESR), an AI technology program was introduced to analyze and evaluate complex, multifaceted datasets. With the help of various partner groups, WESR gathers and analyzes the best earth observation and sensor data to support near real-time analysis and projections on a number of variables, such as changes in glacier mass, sea level rise, and atmospheric CO2 concentration. By having AI sift through the data and identify trends or outliers decisions can be made more quickly than if the data were analyzed manually.
Ocean Data Alliance is another association that uses AI and satellite images to track and monitor any signs of coral bleaching, ocean mining, and water pollution. AI can give us a heads-up at any sign of change within an ecosystem so we can intervene before a problem gets worse.
Reduce Emissions
It's all over the news—we are now experiencing the effects of climate change. We have caused this by increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to levels unseen. That said, it's only right to take accountability for this, we can start by limiting corporate emissions. While making changes at the business level might be a huge endeavour, AI is helping make sustainability a crucial tool for growth and showing corporations exactly what they need to do to become more sustainable.
A recent BCG study finds that various companies use AI to track and reduce their emissions throughout their carbon footprint. They can set up data collection from operations, business trips, IT equipment, and every link in the value chain (from production to consumption). Then they can focus on making changes in the areas that cause the most pollution.
In addition, AI may produce approximations of missing data and calculate the degree of certainty of the results. The detailed insight AI provides helps businesses decide about their production and other operations that pose environmental risks.
Besides providing real-time analysis, AI can also help forecast future emissions. As a result, corporations are better able to define, modify, and meet their reduction targets.
Conserve Species
Acoustic monitoring is one of the most useful applications for tracking wildlife populations by recording the sounds of wildlife within ecosystems. With AI technology, conservation organizations can quickly analyze hours of recordings looking for behavioural patterns.
A California-based company called Conservation Metrics has used machine learning and acoustic listening to monitor endangered populations of forest elephants in the Central African Republic and red-legged frogs in Santa Cruz to aid in reproduction efforts.
Facial recognition technology is another AI innovation that is gaining traction. BearID, an open-source application, monitors bears in Canada and the United States. In the future, researchers hope to employ this AI on other species.
Improve Waste Reduction
Food waste from households, supermarkets, and the hospitality industry is one of the most concerning global problems today. Over 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are generated annually from food waste. Using AI we can develop ways to help solve this issue by improving the process of waste reduction.
Winnow Vision, an AI platform, identifies food waste thrown into AI-powered bins in commercial kitchens. In more than 80% of instances, this platform can correctly identify tossed-away products. IKEA deployed this amazing technology in its UK stores, which helped cut food waste by an average of 50%. See more about this technology in the video below.
Enhance The Recycling Process
According to research by Maplecroft, only 16% of waste is recycled from more than 2.1 billion tonnes of garbage produced each year. And worse, a quarter of waste sent for recycling isn't actually recyclable, which slows down the entire process.
A company called AMP robotics has produced robots that use AI to identify, sort, and process countless items collected for recycling. These robots recognize various textures, shapes, colours, sizes, and even brand labels. Plus, they're twice as fast as humans and have 99% accuracy, so it's no surprise that they have been rolled out in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
Another smart technology is Bin-e, a project developed by a Polish company. It uses AI-based recognition to identify and sort garbage within a waste receptacle for proper waste management. Bin-e also compresses plastic and paper to decrease the volume and lower the frequency of emptying waste bins. The device has fill-level control sensors and you'll be notified in an app when a bin needs to be emptied.
The Bottom Line
As AI becomes more powerful, it is imperative to look at how our short-term actions can have a bigger impact on our environment and society. With AI taking the lead in helping achieve our sustainable goals, we are slowly moving towards more cutting-edge climate technology that can bring out a fruitful climate transformation.
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