Barclays to screen commercial transactions for environmental risks

Groundsure has been working with Barclays since 2006, providing the bank with a definitive opinion on lending security in relation to flooding and contaminated land.

Their new, extended agreement sees the introduction of the new Siteguard Climate report, which includes a four-tier risk assessment summary with explicit opinions on environmental liability, loan security risks and potential property value impacts. It also provides an assessment on the current physical climate risk from flooding and projected forward over the medium term.

Dan Montagnani, CEO of Groundsure, said: “Forward-thinking major banks are looking at how they are going to respond to the Bank of England expectations on embedding approaches to climate related financial risk. We will be helping Barclays meet their compliance obligations - for both environmental and broader climate impacts - ensuring they are well-positioned to manage this, at scale, for their commercial portfolio.

Ania Musial, VP of environment and climate risk at Barclays, commented: “Ensuring we can walk into high value commercial lending with eyes fully open about legacy environment and forward physical climate risks is a vital part of our governance and credit risk approach.

“Our long and successful relationship with Groundsure has ensured that many thousands of transactions have been effectively screened with their analytics and data intelligence. Now, we can take a longer view ahead to account for the potential impact that the climate will play on these lending decisions with greater confidence.”