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New global platform to provide one-stop access to curated reliable data on sustainability issues

New global platform to provide one-stop access to curated reliable data on sustainability issues

World Resources Institute (WRI),
and more than 30 partners,
including National Geographic, Google, Bloomberg and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), are launching Resource Watch, a dynamic platform that aims
to provide trusted and timely data for a sustainable future.

The platform leverages technology and near-real-time data to
bring transparency on the state of the planet’s people, resources and commerce,
all in one place. 

Resource Watch was created to address two global challenges:
a proliferation of data, and declining trust in institutions. Decision-makers
are faced with ever growing volumes of data, yet they are facing difficulties
in finding the information they need.

Curating and visualising
hundreds of datasets

Resource Watch acts as an easy-to-use monitoring tool that
curates and visualises reliable data.

The data on Resource Watch come from various sources,
including governments, intergovernmental organisations, research institutions,
and scientific publications. The team works with experts to select data sets
that are reliable and relevant to global sustainability challenges.

For instance, users can see where shrinking
reservoirs could cause instability
, which cities’ air pollution levels pose
a serious threat to their residents’ health, and  watch a coral reef transform from
bleaching over time. Data from near-real-time satellites and ground
sensors helps users track and visualise fires, floods, landslides, air quality,
natural disasters and other world events as they unfold.

Users can also download, analyse and visualise the data in many
ways, and share their insights.  

Screenshot from resourcewatch.org/data/explore

Resource Watch was designed with government staff, business
analysts, journalists, and researchers in mind, but the platform is free to use
for anyone. WRI will continue to add new data layers and functionality every
week.

"Until recently it wasn't possible to monitor the
health of Earth's critical resources in both a globally consistent and locally
relevant manner,” said Rebecca
Moore, Director of Google Earth. “Now with satellite data, cutting-edge
science and powerful cloud computing technology like Google Earth Engine, we
can achieve an unprecedented understanding of our changing environment and use
that to guide wiser decision-making. Google is excited to partner with WRI on
Resource Watch and the new global power plant database, putting this vision
into practice, and this data into the hands of those who can take
action.” 

Exploring intersections
between issues

The most complex sustainability challenges facing the world
today, such as climate change, food security, population growth, water scarcity,
are deeply intertwined. But people looking at these issues and the relevant
data are trapped in silos.

By looking at a single issue, people often miss the bigger
picture and fail to understand the full nature of a problem. The Resource Watch
platform allows users to overlay the hundreds of data sets available on climate
change, poverty, state instability, urban infrastructure and more and
explore their interconnectedness. By breaking down traditional silos and
studying how issues intersect, users can more effectively understand the causes
and find solutions to key problems. 

Janet Ranganathan,
Vice President, Science and Research, World Resources Institute, said, “Now,
Resource Watch allows users to see how issues intersect by visualising and
overlaying data in new ways. It helps analysts and decision-makers cut through
the daunting mountain of data to find the signal in the
noise."  

Open source
infrastructure

Resource Watch’s underlying data infrastructure (API) is
open source, which means that others can build on it to create their own
custom, self-branded applications. In this way, Resource Watch is a global
public good, enabling any organisation to leverage data for their own causes.

“Resource Watch’s open source architecture allows other
initiatives to leverage its data and visualization capability, creating
economies of scale and data synergies,” said Prof Sir Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine. “Resource Watch could power the development of a 'Planetary Health
Watch' system by making it possible to monitor environmental trends and their
effects on human health.” 

The Partnership for
Resilience and Preparedness
 (PREPdata) is the first example of a
custom interface to improve access to climate data and help communities build
climate resilience, and others are being developed. 

“When our institutions are being tested and science is
facing unprecedented attacks, we must increase transparency and speak with
clarity and conviction in support of sound science,” said Administrator McCarthy, Director of
the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of
Public Health and Advisor at Pegasus Capital Advisors. “Tools like Resource
Watch are essential for making science accessible to decision makers so we can
turn science into actions that advance policies, technologies and products that
improve public health.” 

Partners

The complete list of founding partners can be accessed here.

According to the Resource Watch website, partners support the
platform in one of the following ways:

  • Providing technical
    resources such as storage, computing, and technical expertise
  • Contributing data
    and insights on what’s happening around the world and how data can
    be used to drive action
  • Guiding system
    design to ensure Resource Watch is useful to a wide variety of
    users
  • Supporting the use
    of Resource Watch in specific communities who can utilize the data
    to advance a more sustainable future
  • Building on Resource
    Watch to create custom products and applications, and

Providing financial
support to enable Resource Watch to stay up to date and provide
free information to people around the globe

Resource Watch is funded by DOB Ecology (a foundation initiated by a
Dutch entrepreneurial family), Danida
(Denmark’s development cooperation, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Denmark), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Swedish International Development
Cooperation
(a Swedish Government agency working to reduce poverty around
the world) and the Tilia Fund (a
partnership of private donors interested in solving the world's environmental
problems). 

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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