Established in:

2018

Location:

Lisbon, Portugal

Information:

CybELE is a startup constituted of two co-founders an a partner mixing experience in the fields of EO, computer science and law. The startup benefits from external mentoring and has been honoured twice during the Copernicus Masters Challenge this year.

CybELE service uses satellite data to empower experts, in the management of their legal environmental cases. During the past decade, the recognition of environmental crimes and the obligation to repair environmental damages has been particularly developed under the Environmental Law and notably with the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). However, if legal rights exist, a lack of public enforcement agencies budget and structure reduces the practical efficiency of investigation and the ability to prove infringements to legislation. An important judicial market related to ecological damages consequently arisen which involves liability sentences with legal remedies of billions of euros. Concomitantly, the insurance sector dedicated to environmental policies also increased with Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL) insurance indemnity limits passing from 6.9 to 7.9 billion € during the past years. CybELE investigation services based on the supply of analysed satellite images, provides a new source of evidence in legal disputes or settlement conducted by companies or enforcement agencies.

The CybELE expertise enables to strengthen the capacity to establish a claim of environmental damage and to avoid costly and time-consuming research at the same time. The CybELE products hence offer a precious asset for law firms or insurer to highlight a legal breach and assess the cost of remedies.

The services may be used by law firms, insurers and environmental protection agencies to support cases related, non-exhaustively, to illegal construction, landfill, deforestation, deterioration of protected habitat or any other type of industrial pollution on the land, in rivers or at sea. Currently, the product takes the form of a hard copy and digital detailed report that can be directly presented to the authority in charge of the judgment. The report integrates state of the art satellite pictures, explanation on the research conducted, connection with the legal framework and give a general conclusion on the existence of the infringement and the estimated amount of the remedy. On the long-term (2 years), CybELE will produce a SaaS interface to propose the service.