Financial institutions

To shift the flow of finance towards more sustainable business practices, financial institutions require accessible and robust data. We work with some of the world’s biggest investors and lenders, providing them with the information they need to identify, monitor and manage environmental risks in their portfolios. We also advocate for changes to the rules of the game – so that financial institutions can no longer ignore their dependence on nature.

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Screening portfolios for deforestation risk

Global Canopy is a leading data provider for financial institutions. Our tools and platforms are used by banks and investors to screen and monitor their portfolios.

ENCORE is used by financial institutions to better understand and visualise how companies in their portfolios depend and impact upon nature. It has been used by HSBC and BNP Paribas, the Bank of England, Bank Negara – the Malaysian Central Bank – and the Dutch National Bank, and is frequently referenced by the TNFD, Science Based Targets Network, Global Reporting Initiative and other corporate assessment and disclosure frameworks as a leading tool for business reporting.

Our Trase and Forest 500 platforms provide information on deforestation risk exposure of companies. Aviva Investment Management have used Forest 500 data to help screen their portfolios for exposure via particular companies, while investors use Trase to monitor portfolios of companies and specific issuances for changing risk profiles, to rank and benchmark holdings against peers, and to support stewardship and engagement activities.

Forest IQ is a powerful new tool for financial institutions to enable their transition to deforestation-free financial portfolios. It provides open-access data and metrics on how more than 2,000 major companies are addressing their links to deforestation, conversion of natural ecosystems and associated human rights abuses. An additional paid-for Financial Institution Tier provides access to licenced data to enable financial institutions to identify risks and opportunities to help them to deliver deforestation free portfolios by 2025.

“Forest IQ delivers an important contribution to the ESG landscape for investors with their continuous search for actionable data and assessments of companies on their performance in mitigating deforestation loss.”

Robeco

Logging. Aerial drone view of deforestation environmental problem in Malaysia

Holding to account

There is no way to net zero without action on deforestation, so our Deforestation Action Tracker assesses over 700 financial institutions with significant climate commitments to track their action on deforestation and associated human rights abuses.

It includes financial institutions that are part of Race to Zero, GFANZ, and the Finance Sector Deforestation Action (FSDA) group, enabling them to compare their actions with other financial institutions and share best practice.

Training and guidance

Global Canopy is helping support a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes, toward nature positive ones.

Deforestation-Free Finance presents a suite of practical guidance to support financial institutions to achieve deforestation-free financial portfolios. This includes the Finance Sector Roadmap for Eliminating Commodity-Driven Deforestation, and a number of specific pieces of guidance produced with partners, such as:

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Global Canopy is a founding partner of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), which launched its final framework in September 2023. The recommendations guide organisations to identify, assess, manage, and – where appropriate – disclose their evolving nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.

Global Canopy provides technical expertise and supports organisations through education and learning to get started with the TNFD recommendations.

“We need data, new tools and metrics that enable transparency and accountability for nature-based risks and their impacts and dependencies on financial sectors and businesses. In this sense the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is a great and fundamental initiative catalysed by a coalition of partners including Global Canopy, UNDP, UNEP Finance Initiative and WWF.”

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

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