Trase Finance – a collaboration between fintech company Neural Alpha, international non-profit research and policy organisation the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and NGO Global Canopy – seeks to identify second-order environmental impacts in supply chains, enabling transparency and shedding light on the hidden risks and opportunities that can materially influence financial and non-financial performance.

Over 400 ESG funds run by asset managers such as Blackrock, State Street and Northern Trust are financing commodity traders who are linked to deforestation, according to analysis by Trase Finance.

Trase data estimates where a trader (and, by proxy, downstream companies that are customers of that trader) has significant exposure to a biome that is on a financial institutions’ exclusion list, subject to specific bank policy requirements (such as certification), or more broadly deemed an environmentally ‘sensitive’ location requiring more detailed screening.