I’ve spent my whole professional working life building Geographic Information Systems and applying geospatial science and technology to solve complicated problems.  

I’ve also been lucky enough to be around since the geospatial industry in this country was in its infancy, so I think it is fair to say that I have pretty unique perspective on how the industry has evolved over the years. 

And, for a long time, geospatial science was simply ahead of the times, with technology that was often so advanced that it took a good while for mainstream business and commercial interests to get to grips with it. The challenge was often how we could accelerate the technology adoption lifecycle with geospatial solutions, so that we could more quickly “cross the chasm” from early adopters to main stream market. 

Back in the day, the objection from those who weren’t able to share the vision for what geospatial technology could achieve was often that geospatial was “a solution looking for a problem”.

Obviously those days are well and truly in the past, with endless examples of geospatial technology powering the global businesses and services we use every day. 

However, the simple fact remains that most organisations don’t want to be early adopters (as I wrote earlier this month).  But, with the right evidence (and incentives) they can be persuaded to be the early majority.

What I also touched on in that post was that the New Zealand Emissions Reduction Plan represents an inflection point in the role for geospatial science and technology because the changes required to meet our emissions targets are now so pressing, meaning innovative solutions must be embraced with urgency. 

The stark truth is that businesses and organisations that don’t start preparing for the requirements of emissions reduction and sustainability right now will simply be left behind, and that’s a pretty powerful incentive for the acceleration of technology adoption. 

What the release of New Zealand Emissions Reduction Plan has also made crystal clear is that the time to act is NOW - not some indeterminate time in the future.  

So, if it was ever true that “geospatial was a solution looking for a problem” then today it is quite clear that emissions reduction is a problem in urgent need of geospatial solutions. 

Fortunately, that urgency and the commercial maturity of many critical geospatial technologies are now converging at precisely the right time. 

The low carbon economy and the “geospatial zeitgeist”

In all my years in the industry, I’ve never felt more certain that geospatial is about to “go mainstream”, to be genuinely front and centre and not the “forgotten discipline” powering everything in the background. 

Indeed, the challenges we face in respect to emissions reduction can ONLY be solved by the innovative application of geospatial science & technology. 

The promise and capability of geospatial has properly found its purpose in preparing the world for our low carbon future and we are about to enter the “geospatial zeitgeist”. 

That’s why Critchlow Geospatial have now taken the step to articulate this capability and promise with a new tagline:

Innovating for a low carbon future

The new tagline reflects our heritage of near constant innovation in the application of geospatial technology to solve complex problems.  It’s also an acknowledgement that reducing carbon emissions is THE challenge of our time. 

Critchlow Geospatial will be at the forefront of that innovation and the new tagline reflects this concisely and positively.  It also provides clear strategic positioning for the business and the challenges that lie ahead. 

You can expect to see the new tagline right across our online platforms and collateral as we look to embed the tagline (and the thinking behind it) into all that we do.