Can Earth’s data create a US$3.8T economic opportunity?

How tapping into the power of Earth observation data could fuel economic growth, reduce emissions, and enhance global sustainability

Elizabeth Payes

United States

Jennifer Steinmann

United States

Every day, satellites, aircraft, and ground-based sensors—including the Internet of Things, mobile phones, and other GPS-enabled devices—produce a trove of information about the Earth’s natural characteristics and the manmade activities that are shaping those characteristics. This information, known as Earth observation data, can play a crucial role in understanding and managing our planet’s resources and environment.

Until recently, its use was limited to relatively niche applications by government agencies, academia, and nonprofit organizations. With artificial intelligence, this rich stream of data can now be used to monitor changes in the environment and support global compliance with environmental, social, and governance regulations designed to help reduce the impact of human activities on planetary health.

To better understand the scope of this opportunity, Deloitte Insights spoke to Freedom-Kai Phillips, the director of the Deloitte Center for Sustainable Progress, and a contributor to a 2024 report on the value of Earth observation data.1

Q: Can you unpack this concept and explain why it’s such a big deal? 

A: The use of Earth observation data can create enormous opportunity at the intersection of sustainable development, nature and climate, and land use. It can help organizations validate the direction of their investments and empower governments and organizations to understand their material impact on nature.

It can help organizations validate the direction of their investments and empower governments and organizations to understand their material impact on nature.

According to initial projections from an economic analysis Deloitte contributed to,2 the global value of Earth observation data was about US$266 billion in 2023; this is projected to grow to more than US$700 billion by 2030. During this same period, it could contribute a cumulative impact of US$3.8 trillion to global gross domestic product—which just shows the rapid growth of this industry.3

The other important dimension of growth lies in the scale of the available data. The number of active Earth observation satellites is expected to nearly triple over the next decade,4 most of which will be commercially owned. As satellite technology becomes more accessible and cost-effective to deploy, more diverse perspectives can be brought together to provide actionable insights from a wider array of sources.

Q: The projected US$3.8 trillion economic impact is substantial. Are you expecting that impact to play out broadly across the whole economy or are there particular industries that are most likely to benefit?

A: According to our analysis,5 approximately 94% of the total value possible by 2030 is derived from applications in six core industries, namely: agriculture; electricity and utilities; government, public, and emergency services; insurance and financial services; mining, oil and gas; and supply chain and transportation.

These six critical sectors make up most of the applications that we’ve evaluated but that’s just our current understanding of this. Other industries like manufacturing, professional services, construction, media, and tourism will likely also experience some gains, though perhaps not as immediately or to the same extent as those core six industries. As the market evolves and intersects with other frontier technologies, it will likely reveal additional interesting applications that may scale differently.

Q: Beyond the economic impact, what other significant opportunities and benefits could this data unlock?

A: As of 2023, global total greenhouse gas emissions totaled about 37.4 gigatons annually, according to the International Energy Agency.6 By using this data with direct application, roughly 2 gigatons annually could be reduced. For context, that’s roughly the equivalent of removing the emissions of 476 million internal combustion engine vehicles from the road.

Now, that doesn’t solve climate change in its totality, but it provides a very interesting area of opportunity. This is one of those at scale solutions that, when democratized, can have a massive impact.

This is one of those at scale solutions that, when democratized, can have a massive impact.

Q: Can you share some examples of how specific industries will benefit from and utilize this data?

A: Agriculture alone could capture more than half of this overall market. There are many different components that empower farmers to understand how they engage with the ecosystem and manage that more effectively. By leveraging Earth observation data, farmers could implement practices that use less water, minimize nutrient flow runoff into freshwater sources, improve their understanding of soil health and functionality, monitor various gases emitted from agriculture and livestock, and support the overall sustainable management of that ecosystem.

Some organizations are already utilizing this global data to track their material impact on the natural environment and manage the global supply chain for critical raw materials like palm oil, cocoa, and coffee, which are associated with significant geopolitical and human rights challenges. This is just one application in the food supply chain where you can validate sustainable maintenance practices.

Another good example of its use is in clean energy planning. Earth observation information, like hydrological, river flow and elevation analysis, as well as topographic mapping, can give leaders the ability to understand and determine how best to leverage natural resources and renewables potential in a jurisdiction and then model that out to illustrate the potential supply. It can also help with identifying potential physical risks, whether those are weather-related impacts—such as floods, landslides, extreme weather, storm surge—or other kinds of infrastructure-related intersections.

This data can also be used to mobilize finance to advance the green-energy transition, or the green transition as a whole. There’s a lot of investment going into carbon sequestration,7 biodiversity markets,8 and ecosystem restoration. Large organizations have incorporated environmental components such as forests and other assets into their portfolios, and they’re using Earth observation data to validate those investments. If we’re talking about a carbon offset or a credit that can be tradable, it needs to fit certain criteria, such as additionality, permanence, and environmental integrity to comply with on international requirements under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism or Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. The capture and the trading of carbon, the certification of it, and the purchase of it by an energy producer happens in real time, and Earth observation data is one of the principal ways it can be captured for financiers.

Q: How might governments use Earth observation data to make decisions?

A: Within a local context, Earth observation information could give governments the ability to help create a better balance between nature and the urban environment, to optimize public transport, to minimize air pollution, to deploy waste more effectively, and to develop circularity practices.

On an international level, it could give governments enhanced transparency across the totality of the supply chain, offering a greater degree of understanding of the risks from climate change and nature degradation, so they can hold people and organizations to account.

It could give governments enhanced transparency across the totality of the supply chain, offering a greater degree of understanding of the risks from climate change and nature degradation, so they can hold people and organizations to account.

It can also be applied to the conservation of forests, giving governments the ability to minimize illegal deforestation. The same approach is currently being used in Brazil by their National Institute for Space Research, which built a real-time deforestation detection system.9 The exact same technology and methodology can also be used to detect forest fires and deploy resources as needed.

Q: How could this affect external sustainability reporting practices?

A: If I were to put on my futurist hat, I would say Earth observation data could be used to monitor environmental impact, conduct a vulnerability analysis, and validate that information for dissemination with key regulators. Right now, greenhouse gas emissions estimates for facilities are essentially measured by an assumption—an equation—based on the size of the facility, its capacity, and the type of energy it uses.

In the post-2030 economy, organizations should be able to actively monitor their assets and operations in real time (or near real time) and be able to capture those impacts  on, and dependencies with, nature, as well as the mitigation approaches that have been used. All this will help inform the creation of a whole new market for things like carbon as a feedstock commodity in the same way that we collectively use other commodities.

Q: Could this level of insight accelerate efforts to keep global temperature rise within the limits set by the Paris Agreement?

A: We currently sit at the halfway point of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and it looks like we’re not reaching those to the degree that we need to for successful implementation by 2030.

I can’t say I assume too much, but at this juncture, I am optimistic that we should be able to reduce overall greenhouse emissions, and that global temperature will recalibrate below 1.5° C in the long run. I expect there to be a period where we overshoot the critical 1.5° C threshold with 2024 marking the first year, but our collective efforts are accelerating in biodiversity conservation, in monitoring and reporting, in deploying finance and in the use of these frontier technologies that help reduce our impacts on the natural environment. This is one of those frontier technologies that, when deployed and disseminated, can empower a wide cross-section of the world to advance those decarbonization Paris Agreement climate priorities.

This is one of those frontier technologies that, when deployed and disseminated, can empower a wide cross-section of the world to advance those decarbonization Paris Agreement climate priorities.

Q: Any parting thoughts on the application of this tool and its potential for addressing these complex systemic challenges?

A: It really is this coming together of human ingenuity, innovation, frontier technology, and our passion as a civilization to address global complex issues that gives me hope. I believe Earth observation data is one of those critical tools that can help us raise the global population out of poverty, develop sustainable food systems to ensure that there’s food security, and achieve our sustainable development priorities in a more effective way. In the post-2030 economy, the hope is that this technology continues to be democratized to help inform and create those solutions of tomorrow.

by

Elizabeth Payes

United States

Endnotes

  1. World Economic Forum (WEF), “Amplifying the global value of Earth observation,”  May 7, 2024.

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  2. Ibid.

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  3. Ibid.    

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  4. Novaspace, “Earth observation satellites set to triple over the next decade,” press release, July 11, 2024.

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  5. WEF, “Amplifying the global value of Earth observation.”

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  6. International Energy Agency, “Executive Summary,” CO2 Emissions in 2023, accessed March 2024.

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  7. BloombergNEF, “Carbon capture investment hits record high of $6.4 billion,” Feb. 15, 2023; US Department of Energy, “Biden-Harris administration invests $444 million to strengthen America’s infrastructure for permanent safe storage of carbon dioxide pollution,” Nov. 14, 2023.

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  8. Karolina Adamkiewicz, “Investor interest in natural capital on the rise as world marks International Day for Biological Diversity,” Impact Investor, May 22, 2024.

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  9. Brazil National Institute for Space Research, “Amazonia – 1: Uses and applications,” accessed Jan. 14, 2025.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ashish Gupta, Blythe Aronowitz, Molly Piersol, Natalie Pfaff, Cintia Cheong, and Hannah Bachman for their contributions to this article.

Cover image by: Sylvia Chang; Adobe Stock