In addition, for banks, the forest bioeconomy has great potential to change deforestation trends, increase the value of forests and create jobs, sources of income, and development. But very few companies can realize that potential quickly and on a large scale. To that end, Santander launched in November 2022, together with a coalition of Plano Amazonia, Certi Foundation and Vale Fund, the Amazon Journey Platform to strengthen the innovation ecosystem related to the forest bioeconomy. The platform is set up to mobilize 20,000 qualified professionals from the region, with training in entrepreneurship, innovation and bioeconomy.

This act was added to the establishment of a joint Biomass company with Vale, Marfrig, Suzano, Itaú and Rabobank, which was announced at COP27 held in Egypt. This is a new forestry company that, through planting 2,000 million native trees, will protect and restore 4 million hectares in Brazil in the next 20 years.

On the other hand, Santander is a founding member of the initiative in Great Britain Net Zero With Nature focuses on UK national parks, which are intended to attract private financing to restore peatlands to prevent carbon emissions. The bank is funding a pilot recovery project in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.

National parks are home to almost a quarter (24%) of peatland in the UK, presenting an opportunity to reduce emissions: environmentalists estimate that rehabilitating damaged peat can reduce UK annual emissions by 5%

Impact evaluation

Banco Santander is increasing its efforts to understand and evaluate how its financing affects nature. For this reason, it pays particular attention to various initiatives and regulatory frameworks that are calculated for their progressive implementation and to developing tools that will enable it to develop frameworks for responsible action.

The entity carries out an impact assessment of and dependence on biodiversity and nature to identify interactions between its activities and the natural environment. This exercise will enable you to better understand the relationship between your loan portfolio and the factors leading to biodiversity loss. Santander explained that nature must always be a factor to be taken into account when making business decisions, in the context of the fight against climate change.