Business
From Belém to the world: a financial approach to climate and inclusion
Belém is a city I called home for about two years. This Brazilian metropolis, with over one million inhabitants and located in the Amazon region, will host international leaders this November for the UN Climate Summit. As decision-makers gather for the first time in the world’s largest tropical rainforest, we share the responsibility of advancing solutions that protect the environment while promoting social and economic inclusion. Integrated carbon markets can be part of that solution.
At COP30, Brazil intends to present an ambitious proposal to align global carbon markets by creating a voluntary coalition that connects existing carbon pricing systems. Regulating carbon markets also represents a significant business opportunity.
The coalition would begin by setting a unified carbon price for four key industrial sectors — steel, aluminum, cement, and fertilizers — which together account for around 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
As President of Banco do Brasil, I am working to transform the country’s leading financial institution into a key player in carbon financing, offering integrated solutions that range from identifying and connecting sustainable projects to facilitating carbon credit transactions. With 85 million clients and a leading position in agribusiness, we are uniquely positioned to conduct rigorous due diligence and ensure greater security in our transactions.
Banco do Brasil is currently involved in around 31 of the more than 150 carbon projects underway in the country, with a focus on areas such as low-carbon agriculture. Under my leadership, the bank is accelerating its digital transformation.
Our proprietary technology combines geospatial analysis, artificial intelligence, and data science to identify rural properties with high potential both for environmental preservation and for deforestation risk. As a result, the response time for identifying eligible projects has been significantly reduced.
This new solution is based on internationally recognized methodologies, such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and Agricultural Land Management (ALM). It integrates spatial data from MapBiomas, the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), and our credit operations database focused on low-carbon agriculture, allowing for a hierarchical classification of rural properties.
This enhances our ability to identify clients with strategically located land suitable for carbon credit initiatives, increasing both the climate impact and the economic potential of the projects supported by Banco do Brasil. So far, over 86,000 acres have already been included in the ALM program.
In total, Banco do Brasil currently supports projects that have preserved 2.1 million acres of native forest. This initiative marks a strategic step toward the bank’s goal of conserving or reforesting 2.4 million acres by the end of this year, in alignment with our sustainability commitments.
Now is the time to make bold commitments to protect our planet and care for people. Together, we can do more.
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