G. de Santiago (Agforest): “When information is worth zero, we have access to any data” – modaes
Guillermo de Santiago, Agforest’s development director, highlights that in fashion, analytics with Artificial Intelligence, satellite and geospatial data must be implemented to address sustainability challenges.
Analysis systems, Artificial Intelligence and a focus on regulation. These are the pillars from which Guillermo de Santiago, development director of the startup Agforest, starts. The startup was founded in 2020 by Juan Carlos Martín and Pablo Quesada with the aim of helping the livability of cities. De Santiago highlights the importance of doing risk analysis and predicting the economic impact that extreme weather events are going to have, as well as the investment in R&D needed to be able to measure and help decision making to make businesses more aware.
Question: What is the origin of Agforest?
Answer: Agforest was founded in 2020, just as we were coming back from the pandemic. We are at a critical time for nature. There seems to be a kind of non-bidirectional and non-symmetrical relationship between natural resources and human activities, but we really need those resources in order to subsist. At Agforest we are a movement that aims to build sustainable smart cities to help the development of urban ecosystems, mainly in cities. When we founded the company we realized that there was a context of infoxication, in which it was very difficult for the value of information to contribute something. And that’s when we started to investigate issues related to artificial intelligence, machine learning models and even satellite data, and we realized that at a time when information is worth zero, we have availability and accessibility to virtually any data about the territory and any data about what is happening in cities. We saw that by taking this data and developing predictive and analytical in-house models we had the capacity to make decisions and help the habitability of cities. Today we see this very clearly with extreme weather events such as the dana, where, if decisions had been made based on up-to-date predictive and analytical models, a large part of the consequences could have been prevented. It is important to realize that artificial intelligence is practically one of the few phenomena of progress that works exponentially.
Q.: What sustainability challenges does the company address?
A.: Sustainability is ultimately a complete value chain. If you don’t understand all the links, you remain in what was called circular economy. The circular economy is all very well, it has enabled great changes, but what Agforest really aims to achieve is a regenerative economy, that state in which you achieve the regeneration of natural resources to generate a lower impact on your operating environment. The regulatory framework is quite clear on these aspects. In fact, at first the GRI criteria were used for sustainability reporting , which were a bit like understanding how you are doing your operations in the environment in which you operate, and we have reached a moment in which it seems that reporting has a real perspective on companies and forces them to become aware of what they are doing. In fact, there are large fashion firms that are starting to implement these analytical systems and these reporting models to be able to anticipate a little bit what is going to happen with regulation. The fashion industry, because of the complexity of its supply chain, will be particularly affected. You have to look at it from the perspective that sustainability is not a specific challenge, it is a set that has correlations and you can draw the necessary conclusions to be truly sustainable.
Q.: How is Agforest dealing with the new legislation?
A.: In the end, you have to be able to trace the emissions of absolutely 100% of your value chain. At Agforest, we are in a process of R&D with investment of considerable resources and we are convinced that satellite data, with geolocation, this cartographic perspective that we use for everything, is going to be indispensable to be able to measure and we are even convinced that this geospatial data is going to help in decision making to make more conscious business decisions. You have a map and you have three suppliers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. That in the current regulatory context is going to have a very serious impact on the bottom line. It’s going to allow you not only to report, but to be able to make supplier decisions and look for suppliers that help improve the value chain.
Q: What are Agforest’s future challenges?
A.: One of the objectives of an emerging company like ours, which is in the midst of a growth process, we managed to break even in one year, we are moving towards a growth model in which there are plans for reinvestment in R&D that exceed six million euros in a few years. The most complex challenges may come in business development, the understanding of the market itself, on the one hand, but one of the biggest challenges is regulatory changes. Science has told us that there are not enough trees in the world to offset emissions. If we want to be a net zero Europe by 2050, the answer lies in satellite data, which allows us to measure soil permeability, soil pH, etc., and which allows us to know what carbon sinks there are within cities. This is one of the main challenges, regulatory changes. On the other hand, there is innovation, that pain point that all emerging companies have, which is to listen enough to customers and sectors to know what their needs are going to be that we are going to be able to alleviate with our solutions.
Q.: How do you envision the fashion industry in thirty years?
A.: Studies show that we are facing consumers who are more and more aware of quality, local production, sustainable materials… The model fast fashion We have been going to department stores where we could buy T-shirts for one euro, it seems that this has ended a little, and even those big retail brands are including in their offer organic cotton, organic dyes, processes with less water … The fashion industry has progressed a lot and, in the last thirty years so far, we could say that it has made a radical change: we have gone from mass consumption that did not take into account anything to a much more moderate consumption in which the portfolio and the offer to customers is different. The sector has yet to achieve resource regeneration at a time when we have fewer and fewer resources, we are emitting more and more greenhouse gases…
Q.: What reforms should cities undertake to achieve carbon neutrality?
A.: Theoretically in 2050, not in the case of Europe, we should be net zero, but if legislation does not progress and does not begin to take into consideration new technologies, methodologies, projects, it will be very difficult for us to offset our emissions. Being net zero does not mean that we do not emit pollution, it means that what you emit, on the one hand, you offset on the other. The carbon credit markets, both regulated and unregulated in the United States, are experiencing a brutal boom. However, there are not enough sinks to generate five-year allowances, which is what it is called, in which we can offset emissions. If we don’t change that way of thinking and we don’t act accordingly, we are always talking about progress, but in reality if we don’t make progress, it’s very likely that we won’t make it.
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