Grupo SURA TNFD Pilot:

The Challenge: Assessing Nature Risk at a Distance

Grupo SURA's exposure to deforestation does not arise from its own direct operations. The group holds controlling stakes in an insurance company, an asset manager and a banking subsidiary, including SURA Asset Management, Suramericana and Bancolombia, and non-controlling interests in additional financial services businesses. Deforestation risk materialises several steps removed, through the agricultural and land-use clients of those subsidiaries.

This structure presents a genuine challenge for nature risk assessment. Most asset-level data had to be sourced from public channels. For one of the assessed companies, location data was publicly available on their website and was subsequently verified through information provided by Grupo SURA via its subsidiary. For the second, no direct location data was accessible, and the Trase platform was used to identify the municipalities from which that company was sourcing its agricultural commodities, providing a proxy business footprint for the assessment.

That constraint turned out to be instructive rather than limiting. The pilot demonstrated that publicly available information, used well, can provide a credible starting point for a TNFD-aligned assessment, and that even incomplete location data is sufficient to begin a meaningful conversation with investors and clients about their deforestation exposure.

How the Assessment Was Structured

Frontierra led five workshops with Grupo SURA, aligned to the TNFD LEAP approach: Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare.

Scoping

The first step identified which portfolio companies had potential deforestation exposure, filtering by high-risk sectors and narrowing by geography to regions with elevated forest loss rates in Colombia and Brazil. Grupo SURA selected two companies it was indirectly exposed to via its subsidiaries, prioritising those representing the highest aggregated financial exposure.

Locate

Frontierra developed a GIS-based approach to compare each business footprint against key state-of-nature datasets, including protected areas, biodiversity hotspots, Indigenous territories, forest integrity and water risk. Where exact location information was unavailable, Trase municipality-level data provided a workable proxy, sufficient to identify areas with elevated deforestation activity.

Evaluate

Encore was used to map material ecosystem service dependencies and impacts, covering freshwater, soil stability, flood protection and climate regulation, alongside impacts including terrestrial ecosystem damage and water depletion. Frontierra then applied its proprietary overall nature risk rating, the Exposure to Nature-Related Issues (ENRI) to prioritise locations. Any site with recent deforestation detected was automatically classified as priority regardless of its overall score.

Assess

A longlist of risks and opportunities was developed collaboratively, drawing on Locate and Evaluate findings and involving ESG, investment, legal and communications teams. The process confirmed that nature-related risk management could be built directly into Grupo SURA's existing climate and ESG strategies. This integration of climate and nature risk is central to how Frontierra's services work together within the Climate and Nature Intelligence Platform.

What the Pilot Found

Assessing even a small sample of the portfolio revealed meaningful insights. Where deforestation was identified in close proximity to sourcing locations, the findings gave Grupo SURA a clear basis for engaging directly with those companies to understand their operations and what mitigation measures were in place.

The pilot highlighted where existing processes needed strengthening: due diligence processes needed to incorporate biodiversity and deforestation screening as standard, and a clearer engagement strategy was needed for companies where nature-related risks were flagged. Grupo SURA's existing Sustainability Committee, which oversees climate and environment issues, was identified as a natural governance structure through which nature-related actions could be monitored.

A key takeaway was that even where an organisation cannot assess its entire value chain, the lessons from a small sample can be applied more broadly to reduce risk across the whole portfolio. For institutions with complex global supply chains, Frontierra's value chain mapping service extends this analysis upstream to identify where nature-related risks are most concentrated.

Get Started with Frontierra

Whether you are assessing indirect deforestation exposure within a complex investment structure, preparing for TNFD disclosure, or working through the LEAP approach for the first time, Frontierra has the tools and experience to support you.

Get in touch with our team to discuss your requirements, or visit the Frontierra Media page for further thinking on deforestation risk and nature-related financial disclosures.

For a full introduction to the framework, read our guide to TNFD: what it is, who it applies to, and how to get started.