The IBM Sustainability Accelerator is a global, pro bono initiative providing IBM technologies and expertise to non-profits and governments addressing climate change impacts on vulnerable populations.
To date, the IBM Sustainability Accelerator has supported 15 global projects across four active cohorts focused on sustainable agriculture, clean energy, water management and resilient cities.
Our differentiators:
UNDP and IBM launch new tools to forecast energy access and model energy equity
Solution: Deltares Aquality App
Project location: The Netherlands
Deltares, a non-profit research organization based in the Netherlands, teamed up with IBM to enhance and expand the reach of its Deltares Aquality app to find a tech solution that helps farmers monitor nitrate levels and give insights into nutrient losses and local water quality.
Solution: OpenHarvest
Project location: Malawi, Africa
IBM and global non-profit Heifer International collaborated to develop OpenHarvest—a mobile application that expands access to visual agricultural data, delivers specialized recommendations (via SMS text message) to farmers in Malawi, Africa, through AI and climate modeling, and enables better farm and field management.
Solution: YvY
Project location: Latin America
Plan21 and IBM, together with developers from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC), supported the development of a mobile application, YvY, that provides farmers with technical training to make use of insights from weather data, agronomic data and carbon footprint calculations that facilitate production management and allow better adaptation to climate change.
Solution: CRM Connect
Project location: India
IBM and the Nature Conservancy Centre India developed a public information platform called CRM Connect, a dashboard and web portal, to promote regenerative farming practices in India, with the aim of fostering agricultural sustainability and reducing the impact of climate change on communities.
Solutions: Liquid Prep, Soil & Water Assessment Tool (“SWAT”) VEXA
Project location: United States
IBM and Texas A&M AgriLife collaborated to advance sustainable farming with solutions including Liquid Prep, which helps farmers optimize water use, and SWAT VEXA, an interactive Gen AI virtual assistant providing soil and water insights. These solutions aim to support farmers, water and land managers, and communities in both agricultural and urban regions in the U.S.
Solution: Green Taqa
Project location: Egypt
IBM and Environment Without Borders Foundation (EWBF) created Green Taqa, an innovative platform ecosystem designed to expand access to clean energy resources and providers for communities across Egypt.
Learn more
Solutions: AI modeling
Project location: Kenya and India
IBM and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) worked together on two projects, Open Building Insights and Modeling Urban Growth, to enable policymakers to identify energy and infrastructure needs for communities in developing regions.
Solutions: Electricity Access Forecasting (AI model) and Clean Energy Equity Index (statistical geospatial model)
Project location: Global south—Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East
To support data-driven decision-making toward a just energy transition, IBM and UNDP launched new interactive models to analyze complex energy issues.
IBM believes that science, technology and innovation can help tackle environmental issues while helping communities to address societal needs.
The IBM Sustainability Accelerator has had 15 engagements, each with a different non-profit or government organization, divided into three cohorts: sustainable agriculture, clean energy and water management.
Learn about IBM Sustainability Accelerator projects around the world.
IBM selects about five organizations each year—forming a cohort—to focus on addressing a specific sustainability issue area. The selection process includes a public RFP open to any nonprofit or government organization. Proposals are reviewed and evaluated for feasibility and impact, and vetted through standard IBM compliance processes. The selection process will include input from IBM’s experts across disciplines such as IBM Consulting, Research, Software, Corporate Environmental Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility. The selection criteria will consider the applicant’s level of support to communities who are especially vulnerable to environmental threats, and its strategic focus and transparency on measurement and reporting, among other factors.
IBM collaborates with organizations to design, develop, and deploy a technical solution directly benefiting communities. Throughout the experience, IBM provides access to platforms such as watsonx, IBM Cloud, IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite and Red Hat open source technologies as well as technical mentorship to build long-term capacity. Organizations selected to participate will be required to enter into an IBM grant agreement governing access to IBM technology, services and resources.
The IBM Sustainability Accelerator is open to nonprofit and government organizations globally.
IBM plans to introduce a new sustainability topic and select five organizations for this program each year.