With a team of over 150 professionals across 5 European offices, Tensing is one of Europe’s larger consultancies dedicated to geography-based decision-making. Dave Laurier, Chief Operating Officer at Tensing, outlines how the firm contributes to the UN’s sustainable development goals, both internally and externally.
At Tensing, we specialise into putting geographical data and location information to good use. Through our daily work with clients and our pro bono initiatives with non-profits, we contribute to a number of the development goals.
Reflecting on our portfolio, we regularly help organisations book progress on SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and sustainable energy), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), and SDG 13 (climate action).
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integrate data based on geography and that context is vital for many development goals. Through GIS, we offer new insights in a picture that can be understood by everyone. This offers enormous opportunities for mapping world problems and coming up with new solutions.
For example, we help drinking water companies gain better insight into the state and quality of infrastructure assets, enabling them to better plan maintenance and renewal. This saves them time and money, reduces the ecological footprint of their operational activities, and reduces waste such as squandered water.
We also support non-profit work, a few examples of recent initiatives:
The Ghana Water Project
In Ghana, access to clean and safe drinking water is unfortunately not a common thing. In order to make drinking water more easily accessible, Tensing has designed and developed a solution free of charge for the management of water pipes in Ghana.
This solution makes use of the existing Esri ArcGIS platform at Ghana Water, The work was carried out by a group of colleagues, partly remotely and partly on location in Ghana. There, colleagues shared knowledge and trained the local staff to work independently with this solution.
For this project, we worked together with VEI, an initiative of seven Dutch water companies: Vitens, Evides Water Company, Water Company Groningen, Brabant Water, WML, WLN and PWN. The partnership is part of VEI’s commitment to SDG6 (clean water and sanitation).
Cycling for Climate
With the aim of drawing attention to the importance of climate change, Tensing supports the Cycling for Climate initiative – an annual cycling tour along the ‘new coastline’ with the aim of raising awareness of how the climate crisis is leading to rise in sea levels. The ‘new coastline’ is the coastline that will be created if humanity does not slow down global warming and the sea level continues to rise.
In 2021, colleagues cycled along the new Dutch coastline in the Netherlands, and this year, they cycled along the new coastline in Belgium. Meanwhile, all participants made a carbon commitment, gained insight into their own footprint and determined what personal action they can take to make a climate difference.
Wakibi
Tensing also support Wakibi, a platform that provides (micro) funding to entrepreneurs in developing countries. When we replace our used laptops and mobile phones, colleagues can opt to purchase the product, after which Tensing donates the amount to Wakibi (if they don’t opt for this, tensing donate the used products to other charitable causes).
In conclusion, there are plenty of opportunities to get actively involved in the SDGs. The above examples shine the light on some of the initiatives that we initiate and support, but across the board, dozens of other initiatives are undertaken, both at a company level and at an individual level. We look forward to continue to support great initiatives in which we can help the world as a team.
Sourced from Consultancy.eu