Image by Malte Reimold from Pixabay

By Anica Oaks

Outside of growing regulations for businesses to limit their carbon emissions, businesses have a growing social responsibility to track and decrease their carbon emissions. Because of this, many companies need to look for professionals to identify and evaluate carbon emissions. It’s hard to figure out the total amount of carbon emissions that are produced by human activities each year. Luckily, there are several tools that can help one evaluate these emissions more accurately and determine ways to limit them moving forward. Here are four of the most common tools for carbon emissions evaluation.

Google Earth Engine

Google Earth Engine is a platform for hosting large geospatial datasets. It has native support for raster data, including access to various popular satellite and aerial imagery providers. Google Earth Engine also supports other geospatial formats like ESRI shapefiles and KML/KMZ. Google Earth Engine is impressive in that it allows you to easily work with massive amounts of data (i.e., terabytes or petabytes) in conjunction with powerful analysis tools like Google’s BigQuery analytics platform.

NASA Landsat

NASA Landsat is a satellite that measures changes in carbon dioxide levels. In order to monitor these changes, Landsat takes pictures of Earth’s surface from space. These images are taken from areas as diverse as city skylines and massive rainforests. The images are then analyzed to determine levels of green vegetation, water content, and cloud cover.

This analysis allows researchers to create a baseline for Earth’s natural cycles before examining the effects man-made pollution has on those cycles. NASA Landsat is a satellite that measures changes in carbon dioxide levels. In order to monitor these changes, Landsat takes pictures of Earth’s surface from space. These images are taken from areas as diverse as city skylines and massive rainforests.

Microsoft Bing Maps

You can use Bing Maps to find carbon emissions data for your city. This interactive map allows you to search for various locations and compare different years. On each page, you can adjust factors like population, gross domestic product (GDP), and travel volume to get a more in-depth picture of local carbon emissions in context with other cities and countries around the world.

Digital Twins via the IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a major buzzword in business circles these days, but some companies are already putting it to work thanks to digital twin technology. Digital twins, or virtual avatars of real-world objects, have been developed for everything from buildings to factories to entire cities. Tools like CityZenith make it possible to create a digital twin of city infrastructure and networks. This way, officials can efficiently manage their resources and identify efficiency opportunities that just wouldn’t be visible without advanced technology.

As more countries work to reduce their carbon emissions, the methods they use to monitor their progress become increasingly important. Fortunately, technology has made it easier than ever to create tools that help us evaluate carbon emissions. Use this guide to keep track of the best tools that help to evaluate carbon emissions.

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Anica Oaks is a professional content and copywriter who graduated from the University of San Francisco. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. You can connect with Anica on Twitter @AnicaOaks.