Getting started with the TNFD LEAP approach – Santander Peru case study

Santander Peru case study on conducting the Locate phase of LEAP in a megadiverse country.

A growing number of financial institutions throughout the world are starting to adopt the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ (TNFD) recommendations. Global Canopy recently ran a TNFD familiarisation programme with South American banks to help them get started with nature-related assessments, covering all phases of TNFD’s voluntary assessment approach, LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare). Santander Peru was among the banks to participate in the programme.

Read the case study, Getting started with the TNFD LEAP approach – Santander Peru, in English and in Spanish.

During the first phase of the TNFD LEAP approach, Locate, financial institutions identify the sectors, value chains and geographic locations where their portfolio assets interface with nature. This phase also involves screening sectors and locations that have moderate and high dependencies and impacts on nature. Locate can be challenging when applied to megadiverse regions. In many countries in South America, for example, large areas are home to biodiversity hotspots and unique biomes of high value to people and the economy.

During Global Canopy’s programme, Santander Peru applied the LEAP approach to its mining and agriculture lending portfolios. Its approach is detailed in the case study Getting started with the TNFD LEAP approach – Santander Peru.

The case study covers scoping and the Locate phase of LEAP. It provides a practical example of the tools, data, challenges and next steps that banks, particularly those in South America, might consider to get started with LEAP. It details the processes the bank undertook for each component of Locate (L1, L2, L3, L4), and provides further considerations for identifying priority locations in megadiverse regions.   

Insights from the case study include:

• Scoping prior to Locate helps organisations leverage their existing knowledge and expertise to identify potential nature-related issues. Following scoping, Santander Peru created a working hypothesis that provided insights into two potential sectors for assessment: mining and agriculture.
• Heatmapping during L2 can support analysis of locations to prioritise for sectors with material impacts and dependencies. It enabled Santander Peru to identify its most material dependencies (groundwater use, protection against flooding, erosion control and land stabilisation) and impacts (water use and water use change in land and water ecosystems).
• It is important to analyse all sensitive location criteria, with at least one dataset for each criterion. The TNFD’s guidance on LEAP provides a helpful list of dataset examples for each criterion.
• The outcomes of Santander Peru’s approach to L2 highlight the importance of identifying assets in areas of high physical water risks, which the bank could go on to examine as part of L4, using tools such as the WRI Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas and the WWF Water Risk Filter.
• ENCORE is among the tools Santander Peru used to identify and map the sectors in its portfolio with high and very high dependencies and impacts on nature. The free, online tool helps organisations explore their exposure to nature-related risk and take the first steps to understand their dependencies and impacts on nature. It is a partnership between Global Canopy, United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and UNEP-WCMC. Find out more about ENCORE and how it can support organisations undertaking the TNFD LEAP approach.

Read the case study (EN)

Read the case study (ES)

Global Canopy is a founding partner of the TNFD, and was an official piloting partner for the TNFD prior to the launch of the TNFD Final Recommendations in September 2023. We continue to provide technical expertise to the TNFD, and to build capacity among companies and financial institutions, preparing them to get started with adopting the TNFD recommendations. Global Canopy’s TNFD implementation support programme for South American banks was funded by Norad. Additional funding was provided by UNEP FI to support the development of this case study, Getting started with the TNFD LEAP approach – Santander Peru.