Just a few days before our annual Garden Party, an event dedicated to getting to know our members, this is an opportunity to share with you some news about our members and to congratulate them, such as WEO, a Luxembourg start-up providing detailed environmental analytics that has successfully made its way in Belgium. Find out more in this article! Well done to the WEO team!

WEO continues increasing its presence in Belgium, successfully engaging across multiple sectors and industries throughout Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels. 

“The Belgian startup ecosystem has a lot to offer, and we’re excited to be a Top-5 finalist in the 2023 BrightWolves Sustainability Challenge (BSC2023),” says Charlotte Wirion, CTO and co-founder of WEO.  

At BSC2023, Wirion pitched to various sustainability experts in business and consulting at BrightWolves offices in Machelen, including taking a deep-dive into how to generate impact while developing its go-to-market strategy.  

“We are ever-motivated to continue working with partners in Flanders. Besides BrightWolves, we have been in contact with the Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologish Onderzoek (Vito), the leading research institute for cleantech and sustainable development in the region, regarding potential collaboration.” 

WEO – Environmental Analytics for All from Space 

Based in Luxembourg, WEO uses satellites and machine learning to monitor the environment. 

With the mission “Environmental Analytics for All from Space”, WEO generates cost-effective, real-time, and long-term solutions for its clients.  

Imeshi Weerasinghe and Charlotte Wirion co-founded the company in 2020, motivated by their PhD research at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in remote sensing and water resource management.  

At WEO, their goal is to bring environmental insights directly to stakeholders for practical applications and decision-making. 

TreeMonitor, one of WEO’s product lines, tracks the health and growth of trees, providing valuable insights for municipalities, infrastructure managers, environmental agencies, and increasingly, insurance companies. 

WEO Delivered on Public Tender from Brussels Environment  

Besides monitoring trees, WEO also works on other aspects of urban environment monitoring such as mapping sealed surfaces (areas covered by structures such as roads and buildings). 

As part of winning a successful public tender in early 2023, WEO supplied Brussels Environment with 1m resolution maps of sealed surfaces (surfaces imperméables) throughout the capital.  

Such high-resolution maps help urban planners understand exactly where surfaces remain natural or become sealed, which impacts flood risk, biodiversity, and temperatures of Brussels city. 

Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Beyond 

WEO is currently engaging with Revive a major international real-estate developer from Ghent, focusing on a pilot sustainability study under the framework of the European Space Agency.  

The “Urban Green” project is geared towards resilient urban planning, and WEO aims to provide livability and sustainability indicators using land surface temperature data collected by satellites. Understanding urban heat island effects, vegetation health, as well as air quality is vital for better climate adaptation of their property developments.  

The cities of Ghent and Antwerpen participated in the feasibility study within Urban Green. Both cities share an interest in understanding how the status of vegetation, air quality and land surface temperatures need to improve together to achieve resilient urban planning. 

Business Club Belgium-Luxembourg – an incredible community  

WEO has been an active member of BCBL since joining in 2022.  

On the connection with Belgium, WEO CEO and co-founder Imeshi Weerasinghe:  

“We love working with our Belgian partners, supporting them with our environmental analytics solutions. In turn, we learn a lot from them and benefit immensely from the collaborative Luxembourgish-Belgian ecosystem.” 

As a BCBL member, WEO participates in the many networking and partnership engagement events.  

One highlight of 2023 was the Anniversary event celebrating 5 years of building bridges between Luxembourg and Belgium that took place in May 2023, where Weerasinghe and Wirion met H.R.H. Crown Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg as well as the Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot.  

“We’re thrilled to be part of the BCBL community and look forward to the upcoming Garden Party in late September!”. 

Contact: WEO Linked page