The Natural Assets Initiative (NAI) has received $150,000 in funding from the RBC Foundation to scale NatureScan, a national platform that uses artificial intelligence to accelerate natural asset management (NAM) across Canada. Green Analytics is proud to support NAI in this initiative as the AI development partner, building the technology that powers NatureScan’s monitoring, summarization, and knowledge management features.
Making Natural Asset Information Accessible
Across Canada, communities are advancing efforts to quantify, protect, and invest in their natural assets, the ecosystems that underpin climate resilience, biodiversity, and quality of life. Yet practitioners and researchers face persistent challenges in accessing consistent, up-to-date information. Policies, funding programs, and research results are often dispersed across multiple jurisdictions and disciplines, meaning that NAM-related research is siloed and not readily accessible. Even where the research exists, these inefficiencies create knowledge gaps that slow progress in natural asset management.
NatureScan was developed to address this challenge through a systematic, data-driven approach focused on grey literature: government publications, policy reports, and funding announcements that shape practice but are rarely centralized. The platform uses automated web crawling and large language models (LLMs) to identify, summarize, and classify these materials from trusted municipal, provincial, and national sources.
By organizing this information into a structured, searchable knowledge base, NatureScan enables users to monitor developments in natural asset management across jurisdictions, supporting more coordinated, evidence-based decision-making at the local and national scales. Initially piloted in British Columbia and Alberta, NatureScan is now expanding nationally with the support of the RBC Foundation, bringing timely, reliable insights to municipalities, researchers, and policy staff across Canada.
Supporting the Transition to a Net-Zero Future
This national expansion aligns with the RBC Foundation’s Ideas for People and Planet framework, which supports initiatives that address environmental challenges and enable the transition to a net-zero economy. Together, NAI and Green Analytics are advancing data-driven tools that help communities make informed decisions about nature-based solutions, contributing to a more resilient and sustainable future.
Learn more about RBC’s community investment priorities and climate commitments at: rbc.com/our-impact
About NatureScan
Developed by the Natural Assets Initiative (NAI) in partnership with Green Analytics, NatureScan provides AI-powered monitoring and insights to support natural asset management across Canada.
Over the past 6 months, Green Analytics had the honour of being the lead author of the Natural Assets Initiative’s (NAI) recently released guidance document for natural asset management. The guidance document was created to help local governments plan for the management of our too often ignored natural assets.
At Green Analytics, we help communities make data-driven decisions for sustainable environmental stewardship. Through nature-based solutions (NbS), we support ecosystem restoration, biodiversity, and long-term resilience using cost-effective, natural approaches to land and water management.
