Director, Matatihi. New Zealand

“The Eco-index: Automating Biodiversity Reporting in New Zealand“

Abstract

The rapid advancement and decreasing costs of sensing technologies hold the promise of automating environmental reporting, ushering in a new era of transparency for businesses, industry sectors, and national economies. Concurrently, there is a global trend towards the establishment of comprehensive environmental reporting frameworks and standards for businesses, with a shift from voluntary to mandatory reporting requirements at the national level. This talk delves into the development path and strategy of the Eco-index, which has devised a suite of tools geared towards facilitating the future automation of biodiversity reporting and the valuation of ecosystem services. Leveraging geospatial tools, the Eco-index has successfully crafted science-based targets and mapping suites for biodiversity restoration at national, regional, and catchment scales. Additionally, through the utilization of remote sensing technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), the Eco-index is automating the process of biodiversity detection. This breakthrough enables the measurement of progress toward set targets and offers a means of verifying ecosystem restoration efforts, thus paving the way for the development of future biodiversity credit systems. A pivotal factor contributing to the success of the Eco-index has been the formulation of a catchment-oriented approach that can be readily applied at highly localized levels, such as the farm scale. This accomplishment has been made possible through the collaboration of an interdisciplinary team of innovators and the active involvement of farmers, industry representatives, iwi, and government stakeholders in the testing and refinement of tools.

Bio

Jay Whitehead, an environmental economist, serves as the Managing Director of Matatihi and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Canterbury’s Ngāi Tahu Centre. His focus at Matatihi lies in harnessing data-driven economics to advance environmental enhancement, social wellbeing, and Māori economic development. Jay’s unique approach blends economic science with mātauranga Māori and technology, helping multiple organisations in their journey towards sustainability, effective capital raising, and market intelligence. His expertise in non-market valuation has been pivotal in quantifying the economic benefits of environmental enhancement for a range of primary sector initiatives. Furthermore, Jay’s work is distinguished by his development of innovative decision-making systems, deeply rooted in behavioural economics, which have been instrumental in guiding both policy and practice in diverse sectors.

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