Global Canopy’s recent Accounting for Nature report marks a pivotal moment for understanding how deeply financial systems rely on the natural world. Focusing on South Africa’s largest commercial banks, the report explores the extent to which their agricultural lending portfolios depend on ecosystems and the services they provide.
Agriculture accounts for just 2.4% of South Africa’s GDP, yet it underpins the country’s food security, manufacturing, and exports. Using Global Canopy’s ENCORE tool to analyse the agricultural, forestry, and fishing portfolios of four major banks, the report finds that every client depends on at least one ecosystem service.
Most banks show very high dependence on water regulation, soil fertility, and pollination. One bank’s portfolio showed a striking 66.5% exposure across six or more ecosystem services.
This dependence carries profound financial implications. As droughts intensify, soils degrade, and water systems falter, borrowers’ ability to repay loans weakens, thereby turning natural loss into a material financial risk. These pressures cascade through credit markets, food systems, and the broader economy. By quantifying these linkages, Global Canopy makes nature visible within the machinery of finance.
The report urges the South African Reserve Bank to integrate nature into its prudential policy framework, including the adoption of stronger disclosure standards, a shared data infrastructure, and the inclusion of nature-related risk analysis in financial stress testing.
Global Canopy’s work reframes biodiversity loss not as a distant environmental issue but as a direct financial exposure, one that affects credit stability and long-term economic resilience, by bridging the gap between climate and nature risk management.
GRP supports Global Canopy and other pioneering initiatives that drive change through climate and nature solutions. Through a focus on systemic impact, GRP is one of the best ways you can protect our planet.