AI for Sustainability: Translating Environmental Data into Decisions

The 2026 ESIIL Innovation Summit will focus on AI for Sustainability, bringing together teams across academic, federal, industry, and non-profit partners to leverage AI and other analytical approaches to generate new discoveries and insights that will help us better steward our nation’s natural heritage. 

We will focus on sustainability, defined by the United Nations as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to benefit from and maintain healthy ecosystems over time. Further, sustainability balances economic development, social fairness, and environmental protection.

A key Summit ❓ will be: How can we leverage the environmental data and AI revolutions to make decisions over the next 10 years that set our nation’s species, ecosystems, and environmental livelihoods on a course towards a thriving future?

When: May 12-14, 2026

Where: This is an in-person event located at the SEEC building on the University of Colorado Boulder’s East Campus in Boulder, Colorado.

Attendees will dive into cutting-edge AI approaches for environmental data science, learn how to apply these methods within their own research and organizations, and collaborate on AI-ready datasets, tools, and use cases. Key focus areas include:

• Building Earth embeddings
• Co-producing digital twins for environmental futures
• Advancing best practices for using large language models in environmental data science
• Exploring emergent AI–statistical hybrid methods
• Ensuring responsible use of AI, including advancing environmental data sovereignty

Throughout the Summit, participants will co-create insights, frameworks, and solutions that support a more sustainable and resilient future.

Goals of the 2026 ESIIL Innovation Summit

• Inspire novel AI approaches that unlock the potential of environmental data
• Grow AI and data science skills in the next-generation environmental workforce
• Build transdisciplinary collaborations and emergent teams across sectors
• Champion responsible, ethical, and innovative practices in environmental data science

Apply here by January 31.