Structuring environmental challenges for solution matching platform - BC-961

Project type: Innovation
Desired discipline(s): Environmental sciences, Natural Sciences, Resources and environmental management
Company: XG Energy LTD.
Project Length: 6 months to 1 year
Preferred start date: As soon as possible.
Language requirement: English
Location(s): Any, BC, Canada
No. of positions: 1-2
Desired education level: Master'sPhDPostdoctoral fellow
Open to applicants registered at an institution outside of Canada: No

About the company: 

XG Energy is a startup based in Vancouver, Canada, is building a platform that connects environmental solutions with the specific challenges they are designed to address.

XG Energy’s customers include researchers, companies seeking sustainable solutions, investors focused on ESG goals, and organizations working to solve environmental challenges.

XG Energy solves the challenge of connecting environmental innovations with real-world problems by bridging the gap between researchers, companies, and sustainability goals.

The platform is designed to:

● Link environmental solutions directly to real-world environmental challenges.

● Match companies needing to meet ESG goals with researchers working on sustainability projects.

● Connect companies seeking sustainable products with the innovators who create them.

By connecting these three points, XG Energy helps researchers not only fund their solutions but also implement them, either by addressing real environmental problems or by matching them with companies actively seeking sustainable innovations. The platform uses an AI-driven matching algorithm that analyzes project summaries and environmental needs to create high-quality, actionable connections. The platform also includes an interactive map that displays environmental challenges, solutions, and institutions worldwide, allowing users to easily find opportunities for collaboration and impact.

Describe the project.: 

Today, there isn’t a single database that brings together all environmental challenges (like wildfires, polluted water, GHG emissions, and more) in one place. We’re collecting data from across the internet to create a unified global database of climate challenges.
This project focuses on supporting the scientific foundation of the platform by organizing and structuring environmental challenge data. The selected researcher will help define, categorize, and standardize the way environmental issues are described and tagged into our platform, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and usability. This work is essential for enabling precise matches between challenges and solutions using our AI-driven engine.
(Note: This is not a technical or coding role. The researcher is not expected to understand how the algorithms or database works, but to provide sustainability expertise and guide how environmental data should be described and structured so that it can be used effectively by the system.)
Key tasks include researching how different environmental problems are documented in datasets and scientific literature, creating a robust taxonomy of challenge types, and defining structured input formats. The researcher will also explore key indicators (such as GHG levels, biodiversity loss, or water quality metrics) that can be used to tag and filter environmental issues on the platform.
The innovation lies in building a scalable, scientifically grounded framework that allows diverse users from companies to researchers to NGOs, to engage with complex environmental data in a simplified, actionable way. The result will be a standardized environmental challenge framework integrated into the MVP, strengthening the matching algorithm and improving user experience.
This project directly supports XG Energy’s mission to accelerate climate action by enabling better connections between environmental problems and the solutions designed to solve them.

Required expertise/skills: 

The ideal candidate will have an academic background in environmental science, sustainability, natural resources, or a related field. Experience in one or more of the following areas is highly valuable: climate change, deforestation, GHG emissions, water quality, pollution tracking, or environmental health.
Skills that could be useful include familiarity with how environmental challenges are categorized and documented in scientific literature, environmental reports, or open data platforms. Knowledge of sustainability frameworks (e.g. SDGs, IPCC, UNEP indicators)
While no coding or database experience is required, the candidate should feel comfortable translating complex environmental problems into clear, structured categories and indicators. Strong analytical thinking and the ability to work with both qualitative and quantitative environmental data are important.
Preferred skills include:
● Familiarity with environmental datasets and sources (e.g. WHO, NASA, UNEP, national agencies)
● Ability to develop or contribute to taxonomies, tagging systems, or classification frameworks
● Experience with literature reviews or meta-analyses of environmental studies
Assets (optional):
● Familiarity with tools like Excel, QGIS, or R for environmental data exploration
● Experience contributing to public environmental knowledge platforms or scientific databases