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Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
[00:00:00] Dallas Campbell: Hello and welcome to Outer Orbit. Now in these short bonus episodes we're going to be continuing the conversation from our main episodes, focusing in on a particular topic or an idea or a point of view or something that piqued our interest. In today's episode, we're joined by Louisa Doughty to further explore barriers to uptake of space derived data for sustainability and deep dive into the Catapult's international development and humanitarian work.
Hey, listen, let's talk a little bit about sustainability. I think I didn't realise that you weren't a space person. You didn't start off in space, did you?
[00:00:43] Louisa Doughty: No, I didn't. I trained as a zoologist and ecologist and then worked in that sector for a bit and then shifted over to international development, which is where I've spent most of my career so far. I've done some work on climate and decarbonisation and I joined the Satellite Applications Catapult, so the space sector, three years ago and so they were looking for people who understood the kind of problem and challenge areas that space can serve.
[00:01:10] Dallas Campbell: People who understand problem or challenging areas. What are the problems and challenging areas?
[00:01:15] Louisa Doughty: They're very numerous and they're very large and complex problems that we are facing. So, I mean the one that most people are familiar with and hear a lot about is the climate crisis and obviously we're aiming to kind of reduce our global emissions and mitigate climate change as widely as we can by 2030, 2050, depending on where you've set your target. The biodiversity crisis is looming and is now much more kind of talked about. It's something that scientists have been aware and worried about for quite a long time. We have to remember that, you know, space, looking at sustainability isn't a new thing. I don't think it's by accident that we started talking about the climate crisis around the same time that the first few satellites were launched and capturing imagery of what was happening on the planet. So I think satellites and satellite derived data has played a huge role in helping us to understand what's happening on the planet, and helping us to track us fixing things like the ozone hole, et cetera. So there's already a really strong track record, but I think what's happening now is the recognition that space can do a lot more than it used to be able to and that it can give us that kind of agnostic lens of what's happening and the impact of different interventions, be they positive or negative interventions, and what happens as a result of them and as we're moving towards kind of ESG disclosures, that's Environmental, Social, and Governance disclosures, which is all part of kind of corporate reporting, I think space can play a really big role in, in supporting organisations to understand the impact of their operations, but also support governments and other bodies to check what's happening and who might be responsible.
[00:02:54] Dallas Campbell: That's interesting and from where you're sitting, do governments and other bodies and organisations, do they use satellite data enough? I mean, how easy is it to get? How available is it? How aware are companies and organisations that they can use it?
[00:03:11] Louisa Doughty: I think it's on an upward trajectory and part of that is because space technology is becoming more accessible and cheaper, which is always quite important. I think there's a long way to go for most governments using it. They're definitely interested, but there's often a cost barrier and also a technical capability barrier. But I think, you know, the UK government certainly recognizes the role that space can play. A lot of the bodies that are informing the frameworks for things like ESG disclosures also recognise the value of space and space derived data. So I think we're going to see it becoming much more normal, but also, you know, it is a data set that needs to be used with other data sets. So I think the space sector can certainly, keep working on how it interacts with other data providers and other types of data.
[00:03:58] Dallas Campbell: How has the space sector made it easier for companies, organisations, governments to use data?
[00:04:04] Louisa Doughty: I think just by having more competition in the market has helped because that's driven down the cost, so having more capabilities up in space. I think the sector has improved in understanding the demand and the need and responding to the demand and the need rather than kind of leading with the technology. They're responding with technology that fits the demand and the need of users and governments and corporates, etc, and that's ongoing, so I think that's a really positive trend.
[00:04:32] Dallas Campbell: Just before we turned the mic on, you were talking about systems thinking and I was like, what on earth is systems thinking? What?
[00:04:39] Louisa Doughty: Yeah, so I mean, as an ecologist, it's something that I've always kind of not knowingly applied in my work, and I think that it's something that's increasingly recognised as the way forward in how we work and it's really recognising that nothing exists in a silo, nothing exists in a vacuum and everything we do exists as part of a broader system. So for example, as you know, the satellite applications catapult, we're often looking at technology and technology innovations and solutions. But it's recognising that you can't just introduce the technology and expect it to change, to transform whatever you're trying to change, that you have to work within the political system, within the finance system, within the social system, within the skills and education system and you need to make changes across all of those areas. to enable the transformation that you're looking for, be it towards kind of better climate outcomes, better biodiversity outcomes, better economic outcomes.
[00:05:34] Dallas Campbell: Let's explore the Catapult International Development and Humanitarian work a little bit, which is another one of your areas. I'm just wondering if you could steer us gently through some examples of that and things that you've been involved in.
[00:05:46] Louisa Doughty: Yeah, so the Catapult's been working for the last kind of three, four years on some international development and humanitarian projects and they're really interesting because the space sector and the Catapult brings different organisations on a needs basis through into this work from the UK space industry and it's us working with UK government or other funders to support them in their international development and humanitarian interventions in specific areas. So we've done a lot of work on the FCDO's Yemen Portfolio, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the UK government. So they look after all the development work on behalf of UK government with some other departments also and we also work with their research and evidence team on some cross border research. So in conflict areas where there's some cross border activity, we're supporting them to understand from a research perspective what some of the trends and issues are and we work with non space sector organisations to support them in their use of space derived data, typically earth observation, geospatial data, to just understand what's happening in a region and how the development community can support a better response. So we've done work, for example, on internally displaced persons. We've worked with other organizations on groundwater, so H. R. Wallingford on groundwater and looking at drought and flood conditions. We're using satellite imagery to understand what's happening against ground data and sometimes we're working in areas that are just inaccessible just because of where they are, they're just really remote, and other areas where perhaps there's an active conflict and FCDO or other development staff can't travel there at this point in time and there might be a humanitarian crisis or it might just be a broader kind of development question around economic and environmental impacts and what they look like. So drought conditions and cattle and things like that.
[00:07:51] Dallas Campbell: that's really interesting. Actually, I think those sorts of stories that satellite data can give us and show us when you hear these amazing things like that, it's those are the things I think we need to get out a bit more and when people go, Oh, wow, I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know we could be using this to help people and solve situations and understand difficult situations better. We never hear about it on the news, we never hear about it.
[00:08:14] Louisa Doughty: Well you do, but often it's hidden. Often the kind of role of satellite imagery is not celebrated, which you know, quite right in a crisis moment. It's not about where you got your data and how you did the analysis. It's about what the data is telling you, it's that story piece that's important. But a really good example of some of the work the team did in Yemen was there was a stranded ship that had a lot of oil on it and it was deteriorating and there was a risk of quite a significant oil spill into the Red Sea, so an environmental disaster and the team worked with other organisations to map the different potential outcomes of a leak and what it would mean for the Red Sea and that actually got picked up quite actively by the press and got quite a lot of attention from the US and UK governments and it led to an intervention that mitigated that leak risk.
[00:09:05] Dallas Campbell: That's amazing. So they looked at different scenarios and then based on that information could make a decision or a better informed decision about what the best course of action is.
[00:09:14] Louisa Doughty: Yeah, which ultimately was we need to get all this off the ships to avoid at the disaster.
[00:09:19] Dallas Campbell: Amazing, that's amazing, what an amazing area that you work in, I think it's absolutely fascinating. Are you, I'm interested in just as we round up here, are you an optimist generally? I mean, you work in a difficult area, you're solving the biggest of the big problems or trying to solve the biggest of the big problems. Are you an optimist or are there things that are driving you crazy?
[00:09:38] Louisa Doughty: I mean, I think like anyone, I'm a human being, so I get frustrated and I have my pessimist days and this is probably one of the biggest change processes that we're ever gonna have to go through, certainly in our, the next few generations and it's gonna take a few generations, so any change process is frustrating. I'm an optimist. I think that there's already some really positive things going on. I think that future generations have a different mindset to current generations, the kind of currently professionally active generations and I think that's really exciting because they're going to demand change faster and at a much higher level than currently and I think that the recognition that if we don't deal with these problems they're going to cost us more than if we do, is helpful because we're an economically driven world at the moment. My dream would be to see kind of environment considered at the same level as economics, those impacts measured and considered in decision making at all levels and I think we're making some really great steps towards that.
[00:10:41] Dallas Campbell: I think so, I think you're right I'm quite optimistic when I think about the generation behind who just think very differently to the generation ahead if you see what I mean.
[00:10:51] Louisa Doughty: Yeah.
[00:10:51] Dallas Campbell: I can't remember who said it, somebody famous once said people don't change their minds, they just die and actually that's kind of what it is. It's like minds don't change but over, over generations change happens because Overton windows shift and people have different ways of thinking and...
[00:11:07] Louisa Doughty: Yeah, so I think kind of our role is to make the space for those younger generations to come in and do what they're going to do and make massive changes and change the way that we operate.
[00:11:18] Dallas Campbell: I like to think of myself as the younger generation. Louisa, thank you so much for everything that you do and good luck with everything and thank you for solving all the world's problems.
[00:11:29] Louisa Doughty: Thanks!
[00:11:30] Dallas Campbell: To hear future episodes, be sure to subscribe on your favourite podcast app and to find out a bit more about how space is empowering industries between episodes, why not visit the Catapult website or join them or me on social media.