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Is Web Data the Latest Eco-Warrior Fighting Climate Change?

The Bright Initiative has joined forces with Subak, the world’s first global non-profit accelerator to tackle the climate crisis. The Bright Initiative by Bright Data is providing Subak with web data tools to create solutions aiming to combat the climate emergency.
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Today’s climate emergency is accelerating at unprecedented speeds, with natural disasters occurring regularly, causing extreme, irreparable damage. More cities are at risk of flooding, and we’re expected to reach a tipping point sooner rather than later ’“ a point of no return. New solutions are needed immediately, and web data is paving the way for discovering them.

In light of Bright Data’s existing commitment to address environmental problems, The Bright Initiative, a global program that uses public web data to drive positive change, will provide Subak with direct access to the company’s technology, know-how, support, and expertise. This access will help Subak utilize large amounts of relevant, structured, and publicly available web data to support start-ups working to tackle climate change. 

Subak, a start-up accelerator launched in the UK this summer, selects, funds, and scales organizations that want to work collectively to keep the planet habitable. Using shared data, infrastructure, and tools, they connect the best tech, environmental, and science talent to drive mass behavior and policy change on both the private and public levels.

Here’s what Bright Data CEO Or Lenchner had to say about the partnership:

’њThe climate crisis is the greatest challenge that we have ever known, and it is essential that the world’s most powerful resource ’“ data ’“ is fully utilized in tackling it. Working with Subak, we can make sure that innovators with radical ideas have the data that they need to make a difference. We know from our work with thousands of worldwide customers in multiple industries just how powerful the insights drawn from public web data can be, so there is much to be gained in using it in the fight against climate change.’ќ

Among Subak’s chosen start-ups are:

  • New AutoMotive, a transport research group that supports the rapid uptake of electric vehicles in the UK by providing data about the transition. It helped support the UK Government decision to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK from 2030. It has developed new tools, including the Electric Car Count, which splits electric vehicle sales data by manufacturer and region to track progress. It also hosts ElectricCar.Guide, a consumer guide to EVs that uses tools, like a novel cost-saving estimator that creates personalized costs, tailored to a person’s own vehicle usage.
  • TransitionZero, which is harnessing satellite data to provide insight into global energy markets. Its recent report titled ’˜Turning the Supertanker’ assessed China’s ambition to reach Net Zero by 2060 and was hailed by former US Vice President Al Gore as ’њground-breaking’ќ.
  • Ember, which has built the first open-source dataset of global power generation with maps, showing global coal flows from mines to power and steel plants. It is using these tools to influence policy to end the use of coal power globally. It also exposed the cost of subsidizing a power giant’s wood-burning power plant in North Yorkshire ’“ more than ВЈ30 billion ’“ equivalent to ВЈ500 for every British home.
  • Open Climate Fix, co-founded by former Google DeepMind machine learning engineer Dr. Jack Kelly, and has been awarded funding from Google.Org to support its work in forecasting solar electricity generation to help optimize the grid.
  • Climate Policy Radar is mapping and analyzing the climate policy landscape globally using machine learning and AI to support evidence-based policymaking. It will build on the work that founder Dr. Michal Nachmany did at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE, where she led the work to map national climate legislation in every country in the world.

According to Dan Travers, Head of Data Science, Partnerships & Execution at Subak:

’њHaving access to one of the world’s most powerful public web data collection platforms, Bright Data will allow Subak members to take their climate impact even further. Subak member New AutoMotive, who is using data to support the switch to electric vehicles, will be able to use data to understand the public sentiment on electric vehicles over time or monitor the prices of charging cables. This will help inform why some areas have lower uptake of electric cars than others and allow New AutoMotive to focus their efforts. These types of insights, the support, and expertise from Bright Data will be invaluable to all Subak members in their work to tackle the climate crisis.’ќ

With the launch of The Bright Initiative’s partnership with Subak, the latter’s chosen start-ups will continue to tirelessly work to ease the pressing climate crisis, using public web data to come up with unique solutions. They expect to share their respective findings very soon.

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