RepRisk launches first-of-its-kind biodiversity risk tool, finds 73% of oil and gas projects are near environmentally sensitive sites

# New dataset, RepRisk Geospatial, identifies proximity of extractive sector projects to Key Biodiversity Areas and protected areas

ESG data science firm RepRisk and the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) Alliance collaborated to unlock biodiversity insights via RepRisk Geospatial Analytics, which launches today. An extension of RepRisk’s flagship product, the RepRisk ESG Risk Platform, Geospatial Analytics facilitates robust biodiversity risk assessment for market practitioners and solves common pitfalls around quality and availability of both biodiversity and proximity data.

RepRisk Geospatial provides powerful biodiversity due diligence data, showing the proximity of 60,000+ mining and oil and gas projects to 270,000+ protected areas and 16,000+ Key Biodiversity Areas – then rolling those insights up to project owner and operator companies. These insights provide useful information to market practitioners asking questions like, “does my client operate any pipelines near protected areas?” or “does the mine in my portfolio overlap with areas of high biodiversity value?”

“RepRisk Geospatial Analytics is ground-breaking for investors. It is essential to understand where companies own and operate assets before it is possible to understand the potential biodiversity related risk of an investment.” said Edward Ellis, Business Manager at IBAT Alliance. “RepRisk links assets on the ground to owner and operator companies, enabling investors to better understand aspects of their nature-related risk. When combined with the existing risk information in RepRisk’s ESG Risk Platform, investors are able to analyse biodiversity in the Environmental pillar of ESG in an even more multi-dimensional way.”

A preliminary analysis of RepRisk Geospatial Analytics reveals that:

Approximately 32% of natural and mixed UNESCO World Heritage sites are currently within 1km of an extractive project.
52% (470 out of 900) of Alliance for Zero Extinction Sites, which are home to the last of some of the world's most threatened species, are within 10km of an extractive project.
Approximately 8,400 or 81% of Oil and Gas pipelines worldwide are within 10 km of at least one environmentally sensitive site.

RepRisk Geospatial is emerging alongside the Taskforce for Nature Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)'s progress on a biodiversity risk management and reporting framework, to be adopted by financial institutions and corporates. "The TNFD has made it clear: geospatial data is essential for reporting on corporate biodiversity risk and moving toward a nature-positive economy," says Alexandra Mihailescu Cichon, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at RepRisk. “RepRisk Geospatial Analytics not only brings clients in step with emerging frameworks like TNFD but empowers them with the most cutting-edge technology and the world’s most comprehensive ESG dataset. Nature doesn’t disclose anything, and ultimately biodiversity risk and financial risk are one and the same. It’s time for financial markets to integrate biodiversity risk considerations into their decision-making processes."

Future applications for RepRisk Geospatial Analytics include proximity data on projects beyond the extractive sector and data on emissions and deforestation.

About RepRisk

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Switzerland, RepRisk is a pioneer in ESG data science that leverages the combination of AI and machine learning with human intelligence to systematically analyze public information and identify material ESG risks. RepRisk’s flagship product, the RepRisk ESG Risk Platform, is the world’s largest and most comprehensive due diligence database on ESG and business conduct risks, with expertise in 23 languages and coverage of 200,000+ public and private companies and 55,000+ infrastructure projects. For more than a decade, the world’s leading financial institutions and corporations have trusted RepRisk for due diligence and risk management across their operations, business relationships, and investments. Find out more at reprisk.com/geospatial.

About IBAT

Launched in 2008 and headquartered in Cambridge, UK, the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) is an Alliance between BirdLife International, the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International. IBAT is the tool through which commercial access to authoritative biodiversity datasets and derived data layers can be licensed including the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas (WDKBA). By licensing data via IBAT, commercial users contribute to the update and maintenance of these essential conservation datasets. Learn more at ibat-alliance.org.