Banks and financial institutions have a requirement to measure and report the environmental sustainability performance of their agricultural customer loan book. This is necessary to comply with sustainability reporting requirements, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Capital Buffer Obligations.
To do this, they require a solution that assesses a farms environmental credentials and natural capital.
Alongside Bank of Ireland, Senus has developed a new tool: Senus ERA (Environmental Reporting Assistant). Senus ERA is a desktop web application that serves as an environmental health check tool. Using Senus ERA, banks can make an assessment of a farm’s environmental credentials, using a combination of datasets.
Currently, Senus ERA is now available in the Republic of Ireland. While, UK & European specific development are underway.
Senus ERA ranks farms against 4 key CSRD reporting pillars; Climate/Emissions, Pollution, Water, and Biodiversity. Each pillar uses publicly available datasets and has a weighting. Senus produces numeric reporting data based on available data layers that feed into the calculation.
Part of a farm’s score is also related to their proximity/intersection with protected areas. These could be of local, national, or international conservation, environmental, and/or cultural importance. The example below shows a farm’s proximity to SPAs.
Step 1
Import farm maps (field polygons) through LPIS parcel identification.
Step 2
The farm is now digisied. A farm account is created on the Senus system.
Step 3
An environmental health check is run on the farm via Senus ERA.
Step 4
An overall score and preliminary report is produced. Farms are ranked red, amber, or green depending on their score against 4 key CSRD reporting pillars.
An initial assessment will produce a score for the farm. However, the preliminary score will not account for specific environmentally-positive actions that farmers are undertaking.
Therefore, once the initial score has been produced, the farmer can tell the Bank / Agri Corporate / Advisor which interventions they are making to reduce their impact on the environment.
Senus ERA takes each intervention and its’ unique weighting into account. This will create a revised and accurate score.
This interaction allows farmers to receive credit for the environmentally-positive interventions they have implemented. In addition to this, Senus ERA is serving as a knowledge-sharing tool; farmers are made aware of additional interventions that they may not have previously considered or fully understood in terms of their impact.
Connect with one of our experts today and discover how Senus can help you monitor and report environmental and regulatory risks on your loan book, supply chain and land portfolios.
