Transforming Financial Futures: GIST Impact and Global Canopy Join Forces to Assess Deforestation Risks for Financial Institutions
In a significant move to address deforestation and its impact on financial decisions, the data and analytics platform GIST Impact has partnered with Global Canopy. This collaboration aims to encourage investors and banks to integrate environmental considerations into their financial strategies, ultimately benefiting both people and the planet.
Leveraging Data for Sustainable Financial Decisions
With this partnership, banks and financial institutions can now effectively manage deforestation-related risks within their investment portfolios. By utilizing Global Canopy’s Forest IQ and Forest 500 datasets, along with GIST Impact’s innovative platform, financial players can make informed decisions that align with sustainability goals.
Understanding Global Canopy’s Forest IQ Dataset
The Forest IQ dataset is a comprehensive resource that evaluates how approximately 2,400 major companies are managing their deforestation risks. Key factors assessed include:
- Exposure through commodity supply chains
- Materiality of deforestation risks
- Performance reporting on risk management
Additionally, the Forest 500 database ranks the 500 companies and 150 financial institutions most influential in the deforestation arena, based on their policies and effectiveness in addressing these risks. This ranking empowers investors to identify organizations with significant deforestation exposure and collaborate to enhance their environmental practices.
Integrating Deforestation Data into Investment Strategies
With the integration of these datasets into the GIST Impact platform, financial institutions can:
- Identify their exposure to deforestation risks
- Assess the materiality of these risks
- Evaluate corporate governance effectiveness in managing deforestation
This advancement enables financial organizations to incorporate deforestation-related data into their decision-making processes, facilitating progress on both climate and biodiversity initiatives.
Insights from Industry Leaders
Pavan Sukhdev, founder and CEO of GIST Impact, emphasized the importance of addressing deforestation: “Deforestation has always undermined the GDP of poorer nations, resulting in livelihood losses and decreased biodiversity. It has now emerged as a tangible financial risk that investors must consider. By integrating Global Canopy’s datasets into our platform, we equip investors with the necessary tools to quantify, compare, and manage deforestation risks effectively.”
Niki Mardas, executive director at Global Canopy, added: “This partnership will enhance the reach of our deforestation data, enabling organizations to measure and evaluate their impact on nature and society. Protecting forests is vital for achieving nature and biodiversity targets and is crucial for mitigating future business risks.”
For more information on how deforestation impacts financial decisions, visit UNEP’s report on deforestation.
