Climate CEOs: Scaling Startups Rainforests & Satellites: Mapping Nature-Based Solutions with Space Intelligence
Discover how Dr. Murray Collins and Space Intelligence use satellites, LIDAR, and decades of tropical ecology expertise to protect rainforests, measure carbon, and help giants like Apple hit net zero.
⭐ My guest today is Dr. Murray Collins, Cofounder and CEO of Space Intelligence, a world-leading nature data provider for Nature Based Solutions, such as the protection of tropical forests to preserve biodiversity and help corporations like Apple reach their net zero goals. .
In addition, Murray is the
Science Director and Co-Founder of Picture Zero, a production company dedicated to quality content about climate change
Former Chancellor's Fellow for Space and Satellites at The University of Edinburgh
Former Environmental Scientist in Residence at The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland
---
🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:
- His four years of rainforest work in Indonesia and Africa
- Almost getting into a knife fight with a tiger
- The 30 years of experience in tropical ecology and data analytics among him and his cofounder
- The 100+ scientific papers produced by his team
- How they work with conservation project developers around the world
- The market validation they received from lots of consulting projects early on
- Their use of optical data, LIDAR, on-the-ground metrics, and other satellite input to measure above-ground biomass for key habitats
- How they help Apple invest in their Restore Fund
- What pro-poor means and why it’s relevant to 1 billion people around the world
- Motivation vs. discipline
- Passion vs. obsession
- Why he’s reading books about the Middle East
- And lots more
---
🙏 Hope you enjoy it!
📣 And give Murray and Space Intelligence a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.
---
👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.
---
🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.
Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com
Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com
Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.