Satellite data analysis software firm Earth Blox is making use of data from Google Earth’s engine to offer environmental risk assessment.

Insurers can use Earth Blox to inform critical decisions related to climate and security risk, environmental degradation, and adaptation to climate change.

UK-based Earth Blox says it “unlocks a world of rapid geospatial insights”. Its customers include Globe Underwriting and the United Nations.

"Evaluating risks over large, remote areas where ground data is either unavailable or unreliable is a big problem for insurance providers, especially with increasingly frequent extreme weather and fire events,” Earth Blox said.

Its solution enables quick and easy monitoring of natural assets and assessment of environmental risks across the globe, and opportunities for insurance companies to track the environmental and sustainability performance of high-emitting organisations.

Earth Blox says its platform offers access to Google Earth Engine’s petabytes of planetary scale data with an easy-to-use ‘drag and drop’ interface.

The technology is designed to meet the growing need of a wide range of sectors to quickly and easily access earth observation insights as part of strategic planning, monitoring and reporting, it says.

Recent funding from investment syndicate Archangels would allow the business to scale and "get the power of earth observation insights into the hands of a range of users around the world,” CEO Genevieve Patenaude said.