Pressure growing on companies to prove green credentials, says KPMG prize winner Xylo
Companies are under increasing pressure to reveal what they’re doing to preserve nature and Camille Goldstone-Henry’s start-up has the data to help them do it.
Australian companies will come under growing pressure to report what they are doing to preserve nature and promote biodiversity in their operations, says Camille Goldstone-Henry, the chief executive of biodiversity data start-up Xylo.
“There is mounting pressure for voluntary disclosure, particularly on top companies around the world,” Ms Goldstone-Henry said.
“Financial institutions are putting pressure on property development and energy companies for more transparency when it comes to their impact on nature.”
Ms Goldstone-Henry was speaking on her company being awarded KPMG’s 2023 Nature Positive Challenge award. The prize comes with $100,000 in cash and business development support for Xylo, which has a software program using artificial intelligence to help companies measure their biodiversity footprint.
The company measures data in line with the guidelines of the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, which are expected to be the basis of compulsory disclosure requirements in Australia in the next few years.
Ms Goldstone-Henry said legislation would come into force in Britain in November requiring property companies to have a net biodiversity gain of 10 per cent on any new project sites.
“It’s a pretty big change for the industry,” she said. “They are struggling with biodiversity as it is inherently very complex.”
Founded in 2020, Xylo’s current customers include five companies in the property business of which one is a global property company.
The company’s co-founder and chief product officer, Jada Andersen, is currently in London examining the market potential in the UK due to the introduction of the legislation.
Announcing the award, KPMG chief executive Andrew Yates said Xylo Systems had stood out because of its “unique approach in helping industry assess their biodiversity footprint using an artificial intelligence platform”.
He said the company had “demonstrated an innovative approach to helping industries, like property development and energy, assess their interface with nature”.
Ms Goldstone-Henry, who grew up in Newcastle in NSW, began her career as a “wildlife scientist” conducting her thesis at Sydney University on the endangered greater bilby.
She did further research on the Tasmanian devil and koalas, and overseas on endangered turtles.
Her work as a conservationist led her to realise the importance of having accurate data.
“The problem I came up against time and time again was not having access to the right data and the right information at the critical times when I needed to make conservation management decisions to save species,” she said.
She founded Xylo – named after the Greek word for wood – in 2020 to “start solving the issue of verifying the biodiversity data of different assets and bringing it together on one platform”
She was joined in October 2021 by Ms Andersen, an equally passionate environmentalist who had studied science at Sydney University and had a strong background in mathematics.
Ms Andersen brought her technical skills to the business to help its next stage of development.
“Artificial intelligence is heavily underpinned by statistics which is Jada’s area of expertise,”
Ms Goldstone-Henry said. “We decided to join forces and take over the world.”
While the initial use of the platform was seen as helping wildlife preservation organisations, the needs of the corporate world – where companies are under growing pressure to measure their impact on the natural world – became apparent.
“We initially started out to serve people who were working on the ground with wildlife to recover species, but, along the journey we noticed that companies were trying to have a more positive impact on the environment and they don’t have the tools or the skills or the solutions to be able to do it,” she said.
Ms Goldstone-Henry said Xylo used artificial intelligence to process satellite images to study landscapes.
“We don’t need humans looking at data sets anymore,” she said.
“We can have artificial intelligence working for us in the background to tell us whether (animal) habitats and ecosystems are healthy or not.”
Xylo’s financial backers include former Canva executive Lisa Miller, who founded Wedgetail, a venture capital company promoting biodiversity.
Xylo is one of five eco venture finalists in the second annual KPMG Nature Positive Challenge who collectively share advisory services worth $250,000 to help develop their businesses.
The Papua New Guinea-based Co-operative Advantage Alliance was chosen as the “people’s choice” winner by more than 600 KPMG staffers, delivering a cash prize of $50,000.
Based in Lae, the organisation helps the development of sustainable fishing practices and crop management techniques in PNG.
Other finalists included NSW-based Hullbot, which uses autonomous underwater robots to monitor the health of oceans, NSW-based Restore Blue which pioneers methods to rehabilitate lost “blue carbon” wetlands working alongside farmers, traditional owners and industry, and Victoria-based Wilderlands, which has a digital biodiversity marketplace.
Mr Yates said the entries showed the development of a start-up eco system in Australia of new ventures wanting to tackle issues of biodiversity and preserving natural capital.
He said capturing data in this area was becoming one of the biggest challenges for companies.
Ms Goldstone-Henry said Xylo’s goal was to become the “go-to platform for regenerating biodiversity anywhere in the world”.
“We want it to become the Canva of biodiversity,” she said.
“We want to work across the entire scope of the biodiversity market from the corporate sector to governments, conservationists, academic institutions and not for profits.
“We want to create systems change.
“We want to transform industries and create a more nature positive future.”
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