Accelerating through Technology

Actionable data and technology to make faster, better decisions.

How We Work

We reimagine how to build, manage, and procure data and technology. Innovation should not only happen outside and independent of government; rather, we structure the technical teams inside of government, advance policies and practices to enable higher quality data and technology use across agencies, and prototype tools and strategies to de-risk new approaches. Our team’s technical and policy expertise allows them to support government agencies in identifying applicable use cases for improved techniques and deployment strategies, as well as vet tools before they enter the public sphere.

Why It Matters 

Strategic technology usage is more important than ever to accelerate environmental and public health priorities across the U.S. However, its adoption in Federal and civic projects lags far behind. Technology implementation across agencies is slow, fragmented, or duplicative, and decision-making is often isolated and often based on incomplete data. This results in responses to environmental challenges that are neither timely nor equitable. We address these challenges by fostering enabling conditions across technical talent, innovating tools, and fostering more productive partnerships across agencies and private sectors. Doing so enables Tribes, coalitions, and Federal, State, and local governments to leverage technology effectively to drive environmental stewardship at scale, better protecting our land, water, air, and communities.

  • The National Wetlands Inventory is 40-50 years out of date to illustrate how even the most robust, used national dataset is significantly out of date.

  • One agency can have upwards of 15 contracts with the same software provider because none of the departments are coordinating.

  • Environmental agencies are investing over $1.5 billion dollars in information technology.  The vast majority (96%) of these investments are funded by one agency at a time despite having overlapping and complementary data needs.

  • Despite spending upwards of $100 billion on IT every year, 80% of that will go towards maintaining legacy systems that struggle to deliver all the benefits of modern systems.

  • Water data is collected by 25 federal entities across 57 data platforms and 462 different data types.

What’s New

Featured
Forbes Announces Jessie Mahr as Global Sustainability Leader!
Read More →
NEPATEC2.0 - The Next Step in AI-Driven Permitting Innovation
Read More →
Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? Collecting Advisories for the National Drinking Water Tool
Read More →
Conservation At the Axis of Artificial Intelligence and Acceleration: Killer Apps for Some, Questions for All
Read More →
Project Update: National Drinking Water Explorer Tool
Read More →
RIBITS User Survey Reveals Desire for Data Reliability and Modernization
Read More →
NEPA, CEQA and the winds of change
Read More →
A Look At CEQ’s New CE Explorer

On June 5th, the CEQ’s Permitting Innovation Center released their first prototype experiment, the Categorical Exclusion Explorer. The Explorer is the first time a collection of cross-agency Categorical Exclusions (CEs) has been transformed into data for experimentation. This is still in the experimental stage, and we applaud the Permitting Innovation Center for releasing early-stage products and experiments. Early and iterative releases are ideal for gathering feedback and improving future releases.

We’ve discussed using existing environmental review data management and sharing as an area ripe for experimentation and innovation.

Read More →
New Interactive Tools and Data to Explore Mitigation Bank Timelines
Read More →
NextGov: Trump administration debuts permitting modernization plan, even as staff cuts could jeopardize it
Read More →
First Look at CEQ’s Permitting Technology Action Plan

This blog is a first look at the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Permitting Technology Action Plan, which aims to modernize federal permitting processes. The plan includes data standards for interoperability between agencies, service delivery standards for workflow automation and digital documents, and a maturity model for agencies to gauge their progress. Key highlights include implementing data standards, improving document management, and using GitHub for open collaboration. We note the potential for multi-agency procurement and prize competitions and outline potential impacts for agencies, applicants, and vendors. We express cautious optimism due to the plan's technical depth, interoperability focus, and use of existing work but also note concerns about talent gaps and the aggressive initial 90-day implementation timeline.

Read More →