15.1 Environmental Paper Network Red Lines?
The Red Lines assessment is global, whereas the Forests & Finance assessment focuses on companies operating in Southeast Asia; The Red Lines assessment is focused on the pulp and paper industry, whereas forestsandfinance.org covers 4 forest-risk commodities (palm oil, pulp & paper, timber and rubber; and the Red Lines assessment does not give banks a score for their policies, whereas forestsandfinance.org does.
15.2 Forest 500?
The Forests & Finance policy assessment has more detailed criteria related to deforestation and the protection of human rights, labour rights and traditional people’s rights. Forest 500 has more detailed criteria on the scope of policies, on their implementation at the Financial Institution level and on reporting on them.
15.3 Fair Finance Guide?
The Fair Finance Guide only covers Financial Institutions in 14 countries. This includes Indonesia, Brazil and Japan, but does not include Malaysia, China or the US, countries whose banks play a big role in the financing of deforestation-risk commodities. The Forests & Finance methodology is based on that of the Fair Finance Guide, but includes more “shalls” than “shoulds”. Forests & Finance also has more detailed criteria on biodiversity protection, labour protection, respect for international conventions and tax structures. The Fair Finance Guide includes a requirement for FSC certification, where Forests & Finance requires “credible certification”, and Fair Finance Guide has more detailed criteria on reporting and on chain of custody policies that companies should implement.
15.4 Trase.Finance?
Audience
Trase Finance is targeted at a financial audience, providing risk analysis, portfolio assessments, and extensive supply chain mapping.
Forests & Finance is targeted at CSOs and journalists, providing a fully searchable database and quick links to case studies, reports and articles on the ESG impacts of companies and financiers.
Scope
Trase Finance covers Brazilian beef, Brazilian soy and Indonesian palm oil.
Forests & Finance covers beef, soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, timber and rubber, in Southeast Asia, Brazil and Central and West Africa.
Data
Trase Finance only lists outstanding bonds & loans, does not adjust finance by sector nor by region, updates equity data every 3 months, has less data on loans and underwriting than Forests & Finance.
Forests & Finance lists all loans, issuances underwriting services, bond holdings and shareholdings for which information was found, it adjusts values by sector and region, to provide a more precise view of the finance flows, and it updates data once a year.
Policies
Trase Finance uses the Forest 500 policy scores. And while the Forest 500 policy assessment does include criteria on FPIC and on labour rights, the focus of Trase.Finance is on deforestation.
Forests & Finance has its own policy assessment, which though similar, has more granularity on forest and human rights related questions.
Legal hierarchy and corporate network
Trase Finannce provides ownership structures as well as maps of the corporate networks, which can be filtered by deforestation risk.