NativState is a forest carbon development company partnering with small- to medium-sized landowners across the United States to deliver access to global carbon markets. NativState works with landowners to improve and conserve their forests while realizing a financial return based on the creation of high-quality carbon credits sold to companies seeking to meet and exceed their carbon emission reduction goals.
We sat down with Jeffery Lane, GIS & Business Analytics Leader at NativState to learn about how his team uses LightBox data and how it has helped them increase their efficiency by 200%.
What led you to your current role, and what does your company specialize in?
My background is in geospatial analytics. I previously worked in data intelligence companies before joining NativState, a carbon company committed to conservation and helping our clients craft their land legacy. We work with small, mostly private, landowners who would normally be excluded from carbon markets and aggregate these smaller land parcels to achieve higher value carbon credits. Our landowner partners value land and want to preserve their legacies by conserving their forestlands and handing them down for generations. We enable them to do this by enabling new revenue streams through global carbon markets.
What role do carbon credits play, and why are they needed?
Carbon credits (one carbon credit is equal to one metric ton of carbon emissions) offset carbon emissions, aiding companies in meeting reduction goals. We create these credits by putting in place forty-year forest management plans. Our landowner partners receive extensive access to our forestry expertise, ensuring that the forests are conserved to grow optimally and sequester as much carbon as possible. To do that, it is crucial to have the most up to date current information to provide the most accurate representation of carbon that exists on a landowner’s property. That is what we are getting from LightBox today.
How did you choose LightBox?
I worked with LightBox intimately in my previous roles, so I already understood the massive value that the company offered in their data and tools. So much so, that when I was hired at NativState, getting LightBox on board was one of my first initiatives. I knew that we needed really accurate parcel data and LightBox has the best bang for the buck in terms of what we needed here at NativState.
How do you ensure accurate data for forest carbon assessments?
Accurate parcel data is vital to us at NativState. Public sources often lack consistency and updates are not reliable. LightBox provides precise and updated parcel boundaries, enhancing our assessments and giving us confidence when we speak with landowners to know that we are giving them an accurate representation of what carbon credits their land should have.
How has LightBox transformed your operations?
LightBox replaced time-consuming manual data compilation with consistent, reliable parcel data. Before LightBox, the team was compiling a lot of open-source data which had a lot of errors. A lot of time was spent on correcting boundaries, going back and forth with landowners, using public source data that many times was outdated and not as precise as we needed.
Additionally, the LightBox ID has been extremely helpful as it allows a way to have one unique ID for a parcel (or any other LightBox dataset) and streamlines the way its related county, city, or metropolitan entity would identify it. This creates a consistency, giving the site one ID, clarifying a given search. For my team, using the LightBox ID makes our job a lot easier because we don’t have to put together a hairy search term that takes into consideration the owner name and parcel ID and all the pitfalls that go along with all those disparate data sets. The LightBox ID is an incredibly helpful feature for us.
How much time do you think using LightBox data saves your team?
Wow. The increase in efficiency and amount of carbon assessments we are now able to do using LightBox data is exciting. I would say our team has had a 200% increase in productivity. This increase in efficiency allows us to conduct more assessments, ultimately benefiting our business and the environment.
What would you identify as the top benefit of using LightBox data?
The consistent, reliable format of LightBox data is invaluable. It streamlines our processes and ensures accuracy, making it a worthwhile investment for our company’s growth.
Conclusion:
By leveraging LightBox consistent data and precise parcel boundaries, NativState has seen great success in conducting more assessments effectively, contributing to their business success and overall positive outcome to their goal of helping more clients achieve land legacy and reducing carbon emissions in the environment.
Learn more about how you can unlock insights with accurate and comprehensive data for the entire CRE workflow. Visit our developer portal for more information on how to power your digital workflow using comprehensive property and location intelligence data from LightBox.
