Along the way, I met Gopal Erinjippurath, a brilliant engineering lead who was heading up the build-out of ‘Planet Analytics’. This platform turned terabytes of data from Planet’s satellites into meaningful insights for customers across a range of sectors. In May 2020, Gopal made the jump and we joined forces at Sust Global.

Together, Gopal and I saw an opportunity to integrate global climate models with geospatial and satellite datasets, enriching the data to become greater than the sum of its parts - harmonized with bleeding edge deep-learning techniques. At the time, we saw there was a growing awareness of sustainability issues, and of the growing opportunity around geospatial data. But over the past 18 months, we have been amazed by the pace of change in both the public and corporate perspective on climate change, as well as the rapidly increasing impact that the events themselves have on our people and planet. Since we started our journey, climate events have burned California, flooded China, and pushed poorer countries into a downward spiral of increasing climate exposure and limited climate adaptation.

We live in a scary, uncertain but incredibly exciting era. The pace of evolution in new climate-focused technologies, business models and financial markets is accelerating at an incredible pace, as is inequality and the painful impact of climate change. For better or worse, we are living through a pivot point in human history.

It’s a privilege to work on the most important issues of our time, and Gopal and I are very excited to announce Sust Global’s first $3.2 million in financing, led by Hambro Perks, with investment from Powerhouse Ventures, Vala Capital, Thirdstream Partners, and an amazing group of angel investors from across UK and US finance and business. Tom Bradley will be joining our board, alongside myself and Gopal.

We are using this investment to further build a product for financial and corporate customers to access credible, scalable, and usable data on our impact on the planet (emissions), and its impact on us (climate risks). To achieve this vision, we are growing our incredible team in San Francisco, London and remotely across the US - we’re hiring! We are excited to continue deepening our relationships with a number of early partners and customers, and to have many more join us on the SustOS product.

A deeper understanding of the world around us is crucial if we are to make the changes necessary to save our way of life. I’ll be attending and speaking at the COP26 climate conference next week, where I hope to hear significant pledges for a reduction of greenhouse emissions, and an increase in climate-related disclosures across finance and business. There is an imperative to integrate climate and sustainability data across all corporate and financial functions, as it will affect and shape every area of business.

Sust Global exists to transform complex climate science into credible, actionable climate insights. We are developing a product that harnesses the most advanced climate models, satellite and geospatial technologies. By tracking near real-time greenhouse gas emissions, and the short- and long-term impacts of a changing climate, we can deliver credible and accessible climate insights, helping to engender change across the world’s biggest industries.

Thank you to everybody who has supported Sust Global so far. We have a long way to go, and we cannot wait for the journey ahead.

Josh Gilbert

Co-founder and CEO at Sust Global

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