sustainacraft awarded NEDO grant to develop its monitoring solutions

Tokyo - Wed June 9th, 2022 - sustainacraft, an innovative solution provider that brings transparency to Nature-based Solutions, announced today [it has been selected by NEDO (the New Energy and Development Organization), Japan’s largest governmental R&D organization, to receive a grant up to JPY 200 million (USD1.5 million)] (https://www.nedo.go.jp/content/100947597.pdf) that will accelerate technology development and its implementation.

With the NEDO grant, sustainacraft will develop;

1. Precise aboveground biomass estimation methodology of tropical rainforests with a variety of tree species and heights,
2. Aboveground biodiversity estimation methodology by using the combination of earth observation data and spatio-temporal-spectral model,
3. Robust assessment tool for forest carbon projects that quantifies the leakages and the impact of external factors including policy changes

Forest carbon projects have been attracting increasing attention due to the large amount of carbon credit supplies expected in the next decade, while some of them also have invited an increasing accusation on their overestimated amount of carbon emission reductions and their negative impact on biodiversity/ nature loss. The overestimation is partially caused by the costly forest monitoring methodologies, including field measurements and drone LiDAR, and the complexity of FREL (forest reference emission level) development. Monitoring will be far more difficult for tropical rainforest, one of the largest carbon sinks among all forests and lands, due to a wide variety of tree species and heights within the forests. Growing concerns on nature have forced forest carbon projects to make sure that they are doing no harm to biodiversity. sustainacraft continues to develop innovative solutions for sustainable society that meet all requirements described above.

About sustainacrft sustainacraft develops and provides an innovation NbS monitoring solutions to governments, non-profit organizations, and private companies that are working on carbon credit projects generated from natural resources. sustainacraft is headquartered in Tokyo. sustainacraft’s customers include leading brands in multinational conglomerates, financial services, and forest machinery manufacturers.