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Planet Unveils Revolutionary Forest Carbon Monitoring System

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SAN FRANCISCO – Earth observation company Planet introduced a groundbreaking product on Sept. 24 aimed at monitoring global forests and tracking carbon levels more accurately.

The new tool, called Forest Carbon Monitoring, provides quarterly estimates of the carbon stored in the above-ground plant matter such as branches, leaves, and stems. With a resolution of three meters per pixel, the tool also offers critical insights into canopy height and cover, data essential for carbon markets, environmental regulations, and efforts to combat deforestation.

"To protect our planet and preserve its resources, we have to integrate the value of carbon and nature into our economy," said Will Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Planet. "Historically, the choice was between precise but unscalable methods like measuring tree trunks, or large-scale but inaccurate systems. Planet’s forest carbon data bridges this gap — scalable, precise data at the tree level, updated quarterly."

Historical Data Access

Planet's Forest Carbon Monitoring system includes data starting from 2021. This is critical for establishing trends and baselines that are vital for countries working to combat deforestation and for carbon market projects.

"The climate crisis is the greatest challenge of the 21st century, yet greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise," said former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. "Planet’s system is a crucial tool for monitoring and managing forests, which play a vital role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. This kind of information is key for governments and advocates dedicated to safeguarding humanity’s future."

The new system harnesses the power of AI to process satellite imagery from Planet’s constellation of 130 Earth-observing satellites, alongside data from airborne and space-based LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sources.

"We believe this data will play a central role in the multi-trillion-dollar global carbon markets," added Marshall.

Critical for Compliance

The European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products will go into effect on Dec. 30, 2024. To meet compliance, companies must prove their products don’t come from deforested land after Dec. 31, 2020. Non-compliance could result in heavy fines.

Planet’s Forest Carbon Monitoring is already being utilized by London-based carbon ratings agency BeZero Carbon, which praised the system for offering "the first and only high-cadence, global forest carbon dataset at three-meter resolution."

Phil Platts, BeZero Carbon’s vice president of geospatial and Earth observation, said, "This data is invaluable for assessing carbon projects worldwide. We're already using it to track individual trees and assess global projects on a detailed level."

Planet’s new product promises to revolutionize how forests are monitored, providing a scalable and precise method for carbon tracking essential in the fight against climate change. 

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