3 Ways Your Company's Data Can Jump-Start Climate Action | Massimo Russo | TED

If you've gone to a tech conference,

literally any tech conference in the last five years,

you would walk away with the impression that the connected, easy-to-navigate,

clean and green smart city is just around the corner.

The reality and the hype is

that many companies are working on products and solutions to get there.

Take transportation, for example.

Allegedly, in the city of the future

you will be able to seamlessly plan your journey from public transportation

to shared autonomous taxis and even electric scooters.

If you own a car, it will be electric,

and there will be charging stations strategically placed throughout the city.

So all you do is type your location into your GPS,

and it will automatically take you to your location

in the minimum amount of time

and any payment you need for charging

will be done automatically in the background.

Now you might say, wait a minute,

there are companies that are doing this today.

I can do this today.

But it’s individual companies,

and it's certainly not ubiquitous across the city.

But it doesn't just stop with transportation.

Let's take health.

In the future, there will be air-quality monitors at every street corner,

and they will be connected with your asthma inhaler

so that you know when it's safe to go out.

Or there will be infrared cameras

that are measuring the temperature of citizens anonymously

and that will be connected with your thermometer

so that we can detect future outbreaks.

And of course, you will also have your wearable device

that connected to your bathroom scale and your smart refrigerator

so that nutritionists, doctors and other companies

can come up with new ways to keep you, you know,

slim and and trim as I am.

Then of course, there's shopping.

I mean, when you shop today, you know,

you purchase from different retailers

and you receive multiple shipments during the course of the day.

Now, if you had an app where you could set your preferences

and those shipments can be consolidated

and maybe you receive fewer shipments during the week,

a little bit less convenient,

but you get to reduce your carbon footprint.

So these are all great ideas and solutions and products

that companies are working on,

but they all share an underlying requirement

that could make that smart city

more of a distant dream than a reality just around the corner.

And that is the need for greater sharing of data across companies,

individuals and cities.

And if there's one thing that we've learned

is that companies don't like to share data,

they don't even like to share our own data with us.

So let alone data with competitors or partners.

And therein lies the dilemma,

because if we want to have a chance at really combating climate change,

we need to have our cities become as smart and as connected

as quickly as possible, and as many cities as possible.

So we need to overcome this fear of data sharing

and move towards the smart-city future.

But why is it that companies fear sharing data?

Well, it’s what I call “FOMA”.

Not FOMO,

the fear of missing out on a great party or either opportunity,

but FOMA, the fear of missing out on competitive advantage.

Data is a source of competitive advantage.

So why would companies want to give it up?

In our research, over the last two years,

we've been looking at many different solutions

that would improve the citizen experience

and as well sustainability solutions for cities.

And what we found is that 85 percent of those solutions

require much more data sharing

across companies, individuals and cities.

So the question really comes,

how do we motivate companies to share more of their data?

We need to actually overcome this fear quickly

if we want to make meaningful progress on climate change.

Well, as we talked to a number of companies

that were building platforms and ecosystems in different verticals

like logistics, transportation,

smart buildings, smart cities,

we asked about what it would take to drive greater data sharing

across these different solutions.

And what we heard were the usual concerns:

data sharing is costly, it’s complicated.

And companies were concerned about unintended disclosures

that could risk their brand.

However, there was one exception.

And this, I think, is promising.

Companies were more willing to share their data

if it could serve a broader common purpose beyond commercial motivations.

And in particular,

they're more willing to share their data beyond their own four walls

if that data sharing could help fight climate change.

Let's take, for example, a few car companies

that actually are fierce competitors,

and they got together

and started to share detailed mapping data

so they could develop better solutions for routing trucks,

so they spend less time idling

and also could route trucks in a city

based on prevailing wind patterns to reduce smog.

These are pretty cool solutions that companies are working on.

But the real question is,

if this common purpose of fighting climate change

can help leaders overcome their data sharing FOMA,

how do we get them to actually do it?

Well, in our work, we found that it takes three actions

to jump-start a virtuous cycle of data sharing and innovation.

First, companies need to look for new, unexpected sources of data.

Second, they need to develop new sustainability solutions quickly.

And third, they need to act together for change.

Let's take finding new, unexpected partners for data.

Well, what I mean by that

is looking well beyond the four walls of a company

for sources of data that can be combined with a company's own

to analyze and develop new sustainability solutions.

But let me give a specific example.

Let's take farming.

Farming historically has been more art than science.

You've had farmers that make decisions on when to plant,

what fertilizer to apply, when to irrigate, etc.,

based on their own personal experience and knowledge of the farm.

Do you remember "Star Trek"

and when Spock could scan the surface of a planet

to know what the habitat was, using the sensors from the “Enterprise”,

and they could tell whether the planet could support human life?

Well, I know I'm dating myself and I'm a bit of a geek,

but that science fiction is becoming a reality today.

You have data from satellites,

from drones, from sensors on the field,

from connected farming equipment that is collecting data.

All of that can be combined

so that farmers can make better real-time decisions on

how to improve their overall crop yield,

reduce the amount of fertilizer and other chemicals they need,

and also conserve scarce resources like water.

So they can improve their income,

lower their costs,

and now they can even start generating new income sources

by planting carbon-absorbing crops and getting paid for that.

So really quite fascinating what's happening in agriculture.

Next comes innovating quickly new sustainability solutions.

What I'm talking about is not your typical long product road map,

but we need to have companies hire data scientists

that can analyze all these different data sources

and in new, agile ways,

bring new products and services to market.

We need to use data and digital quickly to fight climate change.

Finally, acting together.

Now let me come back to the smart-city example.

If we had transportation companies and utilities

and buildings share data with the city,

then the city could make better decisions on investing in renewable energy projects.

That could mean that you lower your energy bill

and also reduce your carbon footprint.

Or that transportation data can be used to decide

where charging stations are needed

so that we can accelerate the speed of adoption of electric vehicles.

And that means maybe you spend less time in traffic,

but also your air is cleaner.

So to really make progress on more sustainable energy,

we need to have data sharing across buildings, transportation and utilities.

All of this data sharing needs to come together for a brighter future.

Now ...

You also have a critical role to play.

Of course, we individually need to be in control of our own data.

Imagine you have an app that allows you to set preferences

so that data from your car, from your utilities,

from your shopping patterns can be shared

and you can make decisions about your own carbon footprint

in a very easy way.

So you can run "what if" scenarios.

What if I purchase an electric car?

What if I take the train from Boston to New York versus fly?

Or what if I change my shopping pattern so I shop more locally?

How much will that impact my overall carbon footprint?

Would you be willing to share more data

to have more sustainable climate

and to make those climate-friendly decisions?

Well, I for one, I'm pretty excited about this future,

a future where greater data sharing

can really help us jointly combat climate change.

What we need is for company leaders to move away from FOMA

and back to good old-fashioned FOMO.

The future is bright if all that data can be shared,

and I don't think we really want to miss out.

Thank you.

(Applause)