TheRockGroup

On the 28th of July, professionals from the sustainability- and data sectors joined forces for the second edition of Data & Sustainability at De Balie in Amsterdam. With the support of Navara and TheRockGroup, they dove into a complex issue from railway operator ProRail on the challenging relationship between incomplete data and impact on biodiversity.

Data and sustainability can reinforce each other, but they can also be limiting at times. On the one hand, data is essential in developing, steering and monitoring biodiversity policy. On the other hand, how do you prevent organizations from feeling the need for more data until the end of time? And how do we make sure that there is actual and practical value to the data that we collect?

What’s the issue and how to solve it?

From a data point of view, we often see that data that is centered around biodiversity is incomplete or unreliable. The question then is: “how do we deal with this?”. Navara provided us with insights on how zooming in and out, expanding your data collection, replacing data or adjusting the focus could all be solutions to this issue.
Using a combined perspective, we dove into a case provided by ProRail. Reinout Wissenburg, sustainability director at ProRail, stated ‘I have data, so let’s go, referring to the importance of data on biodiversity for ProRail, but also the never-ending hunger for data. The question that arose from this issue is: “how do we deal with slow- and incomplete data?”.
Some solutions that participants brought were:

Zooming in and looking for locations that represent a wider range of land so you can collect data on a small scale.
Linked to this, do not reinvent the wheel, as scientists have already proved a lot of solutions.
Mobilize travelers as a source for the input of data (through ProRail counting days, for example).

Would you like to know more about the synergy between data and biodiversity? Or are you struggling with this yourself? Feel free to contact us.