Making the unseen seen – Global Canopy’s year of impact

Global Canopy targets the market forces destroying nature. In a year when political forces push back against progress, and companies and financial institutions falter on climate and nature pledges, radical transparency around the trillions of financing that harm nature and people is more important than ever.

Our Impact Report for the 2024-2025 financial year highlights how Global Canopy drives change. We gather, curate and mobilise data, linking markets to impacts on nature and people. Then we turn that complex information into practical insights that decision-makers can, and do, use.

Open data – driving transparency and accountability for forests, nature and human rights

High-quality, open-access and actionable data is the foundation of all our work. Our data around commodity-driven deforestation and market impacts on nature is comprehensive and trusted across the globe.

Forest 500 and Trase both boast over a decade of impact. Forest 500 is our  annual assessment of the companies and financial institutions with the greatest influence on the deforestation economy and Trase provides the world’s most comprehensive open-access data on trade flows linked to deforestation. Floresta 250 – Cattle, launched in 2024, assesses the companies and financial institutions with the greatest influence on deforestation driven by Brazilian cattle supply chains.  These datasets feed into Forest IQ, which aligns, connects and curates the best available datasets and enables financial institutions to screen more than 2,400 companies for deforestation risk exposure.

“Deforestation poses a significant financial risk to investors. Forest IQ contributed to consolidate and strengthen deforestation-related data available to investors. Robeco actively uses these insights in its stewardship activities, nudging companies to improve how they manage and disclose deforestation-related risks.”

Robeco

Storebrand Asset Management uses Forest IQ to screen its portfolio of over 4,000 companies, prioritising high-risk companies for engagement. The agri-food giant Marfrig uses its Forest 500 score as a “driver of engagement and action both internally and with stakeholders”.

Trase’s annual review of methods and risk benchmarking for soy municipalities in Brazil and beef-producing countries globally has supported the Consumer Goods Forum’s Forest Positive Coalition. This data is now used by 14 beef working group members, including Nestlé, McDonald’s, Mars and Groupe Casino, as well as eight soy working group members, including Colgate, PepsiCo and Mondelēz.

Our data is open access and can be used by all. Last year it facilitated the launch or continuation of 44 accountability campaigns by leading NGOs, academic and media organisations, applying deep and sustained pressure on those responsible for deforestation.

“Forest 500 is a crucial resource, helping us and other campaigning organisations to target the biggest companies and investors driving deforestation, and to inform policymakers legislating on this issue. The database is a vital tool in our accountability armoury.” 

Alex Reid Senior Global Policy Adviser, Global Witness

In 2024, Trase data provided critical evidence to a joint legal submission by ClientEarth, Mighty Earth and Deutsche Umwelthilfe to Germany’s trade agency. The submission called for an investigation into three of the country’s biggest meat producers that are exposed to deforestation and human rights risks in Brazil through the soy in their supply chain. The case is still pending with Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control.

Unlocking finance sector action

We target finance sector action because financial institutions can exert considerable influence by incorporating environmental and human rights standards into their investment and lending practices. Their capital gives them leverage over the companies they loan to and invest in.

So tools such as Forest IQ and Deforestation-free Transition (DEFT) Pathway have been built with the benefit of financial institution engagement. Sue Reid, Climate Finance Advisor to Christiana Figueres at Global Optimism, says this equips the finance sector with “the data and analytics that are essential for understanding risk exposures and getting this stuff done”. 

From the outset, we’ve worked with and advised the Finance Sector Deforestation Action (FSDA) initiative, a group of financial institutions with over US$8 trillion in assets under management, that have committed to tackle deforestation in their portfolios. And this foundational work enabled the FSDA to lobby another network – the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, which has 87 signatories – to adopt guidelines and recommendations to address deforestation.

“It’s hard to imagine how we would be able to make progress in this space without the work that Global Canopy does.”

Sue Reid Climate Finance Advisor to Christiana Figueres at Global Optimism

Our data also drives shareholder action. Storebrand used Forest IQ and Forest 500 data to secure concrete no-deforestation steps from Bunge Global SA, prompting commitments to report on deforestation and conversion risks and to take immediate corrective action across its soy supply chain. 

Between April 2024 and March 2025, we published over 19 guidance materials and methodologies for stakeholders. We have worked closely with financial institutions to build their capacity to respond to and assess nature-related risks, delivering more than 340 training sessions to individuals working in financial institutions and companies. 

And the Swedish pension fund AP2 followed our Deforestation-free Finance guidance, in collaboration with Climate & Company, to assess the deforestation exposure of AP2’s equity portfolio. This analysis identified 155 portfolio companies with high or very high deforestation risk. AP2 has since committed to actively engaging with 100% of these companies by 2025, reserving divestment as a last resort for those that fail to address these risks.

In 2024, a white paper was published highlighting our work with the Development Bank of Southern Africa on integrating nature considerations into its lending decisions. It used ENCORE to assess portfolio exposures, identify high-risk sectors and convert biodiversity dependencies into financial risk language for management and its Board. It has developed an integrated biodiversity strategic framework and a customised indicator set which can now be replicated across African development finance institutions.

Enabling strongly regulated and enforced markets

Over the course of the year we also pushed for ambitious voluntary standards and  regulatory action. We need both to drive change at speed and scale.

We’ve made a significant contribution in supporting the uptake of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). Over 620 organisations have now adopted the framework and we conducted a TNFD familiarisation programme with South American banks, assisting them in getting started with the TNFD’s voluntary LEAP approach (Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare) to nature-related risk assessments. Banco de Bogotá was among the programme participants.

ENCORE provides a free and open resource that enables financial actors, such as central banks, to transition their understanding from abstract notions of nature risk to more quantifiable, sector-specific exposure. Over the last year, four additional macroeconomic analyses were conducted by central banks and other actors using ENCORE data alongside other tools, bringing the total to 15 since 2020. 

But we also need regulation to transform markets and, over the last year, Global Canopy has informed at least seven national or regional policies; been cited in draft bills, consultation papers, exposure drafts; and officially published concept notes related to policy and regulation.

Trase plays a pivotal role in campaigning for landmark regulations like the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the UK’s Forest Risk Commodities due diligence legislation. The Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption (GEIC) indicator, developed by SEI York and Trase in partnership with the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee was instrumental in setting the scope of the UK’s legislation. In 2024, it was made an official UK statistic.

“The GEIC indicator is a crucial piece of evidence to tackle the nature crisis […] No other tool is currently available that provides comprehensive country- and commodity specific data estimating the impacts of consumption.”

Maddie Harris, Senior Evidence Specialist at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee

GEIC data also provided key evidence for the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee’s report on the UK’s contribution to tackling global deforestation and recommendations on addressing it. GEIC now provides national-level data for over 180 countries.

Additionally through our partnership with Chalmers University of Technology and the integration of DeDuCe data, Trase produced a series of EU27 factsheets detailing different countries’ exposure to deforestation. These factsheets, alongside Trase data and technical support, are now supporting EU Member State authorities responsible for the EUDR to better understand their exposure to deforestation and inform how they carry out risk-based enforcement.

The world is at its most divided and polarised for many years. We are seeing environmental progress under attack, policy fragmentation and a reining back of company commitments, finance sector action and government regulation. Despite these challenges, our latest Impact Report shows Global Canopy continues to make real impact. Halting and reversing deforestation and supporting a just climate and nature transition requires commitment, innovation and collaboration, and that’s at the heart of what we do.

Read the Impact Report