Various cross-sectoral organizations in Indonesia are starting to monitor the impact of their carbon emissions with Jejak.in and Microsoft, for a sustainable future in Indonesia
To achieve a sustainable future, Indonesia has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 41 percent by 2030. This commitment is included in the Indonesia Emas 2045 (Golden Indonesia 2045) Program.
To bring this goal to life, the participation of everyone in society is needed. This is because our daily activities such as turning on the lights, eating, and driving contribute to the creation of carbon footprint—the total greenhouse gas emissions generated directly or indirectly from individuals, organizations, events, or products.*
Various educational efforts about the importance of collaboration in solving sustainability issues have started to increase the awareness level of individuals and organizations to reduce the environmental impact of daily activities. The next question: how can we carry out activities in a sustainable manner? What concrete actions can we take?
Innovations in cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), thankfully, have already started providing solutions that allow us to measure and report our carbon footprint, as well as monitor our recovery actions more easily.
Jejak.in is a digital platform that provides cutting-edge and affordable technological innovation solutions to contribute to environmental conservation. Using support from the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI, Jejak.in uses a three-step approach in its efforts to help fight climate change, by understanding the carbon footprint generated, contributing to eliminating the impact of the resulted carbon, and monitoring the reforestation or replanting program on the barren forest.
“Jejak.in was established because we see how the efforts to fight climate change must be accessible to everyone. By opening opportunities for many parties to easily understand the carbon impact resulted from their daily activities, we hope more and more people are aware and want to reduce their carbon impact through various sustainable steps,” said Arfan Arlanda, CEO and Founder of Jejak.in.
The Jejak.in platform is a place for various data sources that collect important information about the environment, including the use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR), drones, and various IoT sensors. The collected data is then processed to produce information that users can use to understand environmental impacts.
With Microsoft’s support through the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform, Jejak.in can do these things in an integrated manner with easy access. The various data points collected are received by Microsoft Azure for later processing and generating insights. In addition, the Microsoft Azure platform also supports the distribution of processed information to relevant stakeholders, including the government.
With the spirit of collaboration, Jejak.in continues to advocate the issue of sustainability through partnerships with several leading institutions in Indonesia to provide carbon calculators and monitoring tools available through various digital platforms.
Supporting the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy to Build Greener Tourism
The global aviation industry produces approximately 2.1% of all human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions**. This is not to mention the carbon impact of land transport, meals, and the accommodation needed when traveling. To help tourists visit Indonesia more responsibly, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf) through the official Indonesia Travel website provides a carbon calculator feature in collaboration with Jejak.in. Here, tourists can calculate the carbon footprint resulting from daily activities and the number of trees that can be planted to remove their carbon impact, and directly contribute by planting trees according to these results in a number of conservation areas and urban forests in Indonesia.
Built on Microsoft Azure, the Jejak.in platform can not only calculate the carbon footprint and help take initiatives to reduce it, but also analyze data anomalies and draw conclusions from the collected data. As a result, the platform can provide useful recommendations for the government to make decisions regarding green tourism quickly and accurately.
Preserving Mangrove Forests and Crabs in the Aru Islands
According to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, the Aru Islands have an area of mangrove ecosystems of more than 150 thousand hectares—making it the right habitat for mangrove crabs. With this spacious area, the Aru Islands became the largest producer of mangrove crabs in Eastern Indonesia. To help protect the mangrove forests of the Aru Islands from illegal logging and retrieval of crabs, Jejak.in monitors the mangrove tree growth, calculates the amount of carbon that can be absorbed, and reports the impact of tree planting as well as the presence of crabs. By utilizing Jejak.in technology, surrounding communities can directly monitor their forests and help the Aru Islands remain green.
The biodiversity measurement and vegetation index capabilities on Jejak.in platform is built by leveraging the Azure Cognitive Services API, an AI service from the Azure innovation platform that makes it easy for developers to add AI capabilities to their applications. The use of this platform greatly facilitates the work of Jejak.in. Jejak.in’s forest ranger/caretaker can simply take a photo of the selected area, upload the photo into the dashboard of the Jejak.in, and the photo is then classified into meaningful data. In terms of platform development, the use of Azure Cognitive Services API services helps Jejak.in setting up the platform quickly without building AI capabilities from scratch.
Make Gojek Riders Be Environmentally Conscious Through GoGreener Carbon Offset from GoTo Group
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrW91qqORoU]
Traveling by motorized vehicle, whether public or private, clearly creates a carbon footprint. Understanding the carbon impact it produces, GoTo and Jejak.in present the GoGreener Carbon Offset feature in the Gojek ride-sharing app. Here, users can support efforts to eliminate the carbon impact of their travel with Gojek through tree planting efforts in a more transparent and sustainable manner.
To measure the carbon produced by Gojek ride-hailing activities and monitor the impact of this program on air, water, and soil quality, Jejak.in utilizes the capabilities of its carbon calculator. With Microsoft Azure, Jejak.in can build the GoGreener Carbon Offset feature in the Gojek application—allowing users to calculate their carbon footprint, take carbon offset actions, and receive reports on the impact of carbon offsets carried out—quickly and cost-effectively.
Sharia Aladin Bank’s Efforts in Minimizing the Company’s Carbon Footprint
In general, the banking ecosystem in Indonesia has many branch offices spread throughout the region. This aims to make it easier for people to increase the accessibility of banking services. However, as the largest and first Sharia Digital Bank in Indonesia, Bank Aladin Syariah conducts its banking activities through a digital platform and has only one main office building as a headquarter.
To reduce carbon emissions, Bank Aladin Syariah utilizes Microsoft Azure-based technology, namely through Jejak.in Carbon Accounting in calculating and recording carbon emissions from its operational activities in scope 1 and scope 2. Through the digital ecosystem, Bank Aladin Syariah can choose various ways to reduce carbon emissions, mitigation, and offset plans. Not only that, the Jejak.in platform has also made it easier for Bank Aladin Syariah to achieve its target of becoming an environmentally friendly, low-carbon digital bank, and supporting sustainable business.
Arfan added, “Our collaboration with Microsoft enables all the innovative steps we take through Jejak.in to succeed. The Azure platform that we use allows us to combine the various data points we have to work with based on a variety of national and international standards, as well as make them easily accessible to users using a variety of digital platforms daily.”
Jejak.in has now recorded more than 15,000 species of trees in its database, as well as monitoring reforestation efforts in Central Kalimantan involving more than 10 million trees. For Jejak.in, these achievements are just the beginning of more efforts to build a better sustainable future for Indonesia.
“Our joint efforts to conserve the environment will play an important role in Indonesia’s more sustainable future. We believe that technology can help us join hands in creating that future,” Arfan continues.
Jejak.in and Microsoft share the same mission, which is to support the implementation of a commitment to accountable and transparent sustainability action through technology optimization. As a form of this commitment, Microsoft has presented a number of specific solutions for sustainability. Some of them are the Microsoft Emissions Impact Dashboard to get carbon impact transparency from the use of Microsoft cloud technology, and Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability which can provide more complete insights, including tracking the reduction of carbon emission targets.
It is delighting to see more and more individuals and organizations taking part in this technology-based sustainability journey. Hopefully what Jejak.in, Kemenparekraf, Kepulauan Aru, GoTo Group, and Bank Aladin Syariah do can also inspire other people and institutions in Indonesia to start measuring, analyzing, reporting, and taking good action to welcome the future of Indonesia’s net-zero.
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*The Carbon Trust. 2018. Carbon Footprinting