Each year, our R&D center Eramet Ideas organizes an Open Innovation Challenge to bring out innovative collaborative solutions in line with the Group’s strategy. For this 2024-2025 edition, the chosen theme was biodiversity, one of the major objectives of our CSR roadmap Act for Positive Mining.
This year, the challenge attracted 100 participants from 28 countries. 7 startups were selected to pitch their solution to an Eramet evaluation committee, and 4 out of those were chosen to work with Eramet experts in order to develop a concrete proposal.
Invasive alien species at the heart of this year’s edition
With biodiversity as their main theme, participants were asked to propose a solution addressing the following specific issue: “How to better detect, contain and control invasive alien species (IAS)”.
IAS are one of the main factors of biodiversity loss worldwide. Human activities have facilitated the introduction and spread of these species in environments they would not naturally colonize. All Eramet sites are confronted with IAS: during the reception and transport of goods, during mining operations and then during land rehabilitation.
On its mining sites, Eramet does everything possible to prevent the spread of invasive alien species. We favor local species in our planting and sowing programs, and we closely monitor the appearance of exotic species on rehabilitated plots.
Using AI to preserve biodiversity: Mozaic Earth and Gentian’s winning solution
On April 17, a jury of Eramet experts presided by Virginie de Chassey, Eramet’s Chief Sustainability and External Affairs Officer, awarded the first prize to Mozaic Earth and Gentian. Eramet employees were also able to vote for their favorite project among the three finalists, with their vote accounting for 30% of the final score.
Mozaic Earth is a British start-up founded in 2023, specializing in image analysis using AI. They offer a platform for collecting and analyzing ecological data, gathered via satellite, drone, and smartphone, which can be integrated with field data and international databases.
Gentian is also a British startup that uses AI and high-resolution satellite imagery to provide biodiversity assessments, enabling organizations to monitor habitats, assess nature-related risks, and support sustainability efforts across urban and rural landscapes.
As part of the Open Innovation Challenge, these two start-ups collaborated to develop a case study in Gabon aimed at assessing the quality of the savanna on different plots representative of a gradient ranging from a degraded post-exploitation area to a natural area within a reserve.
