Unlocking the Potential of Underutilized Properties through Geospatial Analysis
Tapping Into Your Land Portfolios Full Potential
Properties that are no longer being utilized tend to become financial liabilities, incurring ongoing tax payments without generating any real value, and companies often find themselves burdened by properties with environmental concerns that make them difficult or risky to sell. These properties can also open companies up to potential legal liabilities, and yet to be determined remediation obligations, due to emerging regulations in an ever-changing, highly regulated sector.
However, for those interested in turning a liability into an asset for their business and the community there are many alternatives to divesting a property that could yield the highest value. By combining the power of analysis, through utilizing Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), with professional strategy, you can discover transformative solutions for your real estate portfolio.
A Creative, Non-Traditional Use of GIS
Working alongside industry leaders in remediation and energy, we’ve found most GIS users focus exclusively on its out-of-the-box functionality and applications, however we empower our clients to tap into the hidden power of GIS by looking for spatial solutions hidden beneath the surface of its typical use cases. By enabling portfolio-wide land analytics, and integrating public data to enhance your strategies, you can identify hidden liabilities, divestment opportunities, and yes—alternative land uses!
Allow us to show you how to take your property strategy to the next level by streamlining data across your entire property portfolio-not just site by site.
But to get there, you've got to address three main things:
Understand and organize the data you have
Identity and close data gaps and ensure quality control through validation
Many companies fail to make it past these steps without costly projects or huge time delays, but Pinnacle can help you avoid both by providing experienced support to successfully navigate these processes.
Once you're on steady footing with these items and have garnered trust with your data, the real fun begins... To empower your land strategy and help your teams to make the best decisions, you've got to enhance your data through advanced analytics, build analytical solutions and strategies that your team can use to enhance their overall land management objectives, and provide pathways to deepen their industry knowledge through data insights.
Here are five examples of key latent opportunities:
1. Long-Term Leasing for Renewable Energy Development
Properties with suitable conditions can be leased out to renewable energy infrastructure developers, promoting the generation of clean and renewable energy. This alternative use not only benefits the environment but provides a steady income stream and reduces the need for near-term remediation.
2. Wetlands Mitigation and Conservation
Environmentally impacted sites near wetlands can potentially be designated for wetlands mitigation and conservation efforts and, by restoring or creating wetlands in these areas, companies can contribute to preserving biodiversity and maintaining ecological balance while reducing liability and potentially gaining tax credits.
3. Critical Habitat Protection and Biodiversity Conservation
Sites with unique ecological features or endangered wildlife can be designated as critical habitat areas to protect both biodiversity and those species within it. This demonstration of environmental stewardship not only preserves delicate ecosystems, but oftentimes raises public approval and benefits the surrounding communities.
4. Sustainable Timber Harvesting
Through responsible forestry practices, companies can contribute to the timber industry while ensuring the long-term health and vitality of the forest ecosystem by utilizing sites for sustainable timber harvesting.
5. Charitable Land Donation
Donating property, with restrictions that it must be used as a designated green space or a park, will remove the environmental liability from your books and provide an asset to the community. Companies may also be able to capitalize on tax incentives for the donation, or carbon tax credits, depending on its use.
Worried You’re Wasting the Power of GIS? Let Pinnacle EMS Lay the Groundwork!
What opportunities and liabilities are you missing in your portfolio because of data gaps or a lack of understanding around what to look for? In the rapidly changing energy and environmental industry, it’s important to have a complete picture of property ownership, increasing standards, and new incentives.
If you don’t have the bandwidth to collect, organize, and interrogate the data to answer those questions, our Geospatial & Enterprise Data Services team can do it for you. We’ll comb through all your scattered data and transform it into a usable, evergreen, sustainable database that informs land management strategies throughout your entire portfolio.
Don’t have a land problem you need to solve? Our Geospatial & Enterprise Data Services can help focus your GIS efforts in any sector, whether it be general data management, spatial data enablement, data aggregation and tracking, traditional data analysis, and so much more!