Driving Climate-Positive Investments with Copernicus-Enabled Biodiversity Monitoring
As biodiversity loss accelerates, the need for smarter, data-driven solutions has never been more urgent. Biodiversity critically supports healthy ecosystems, agriculture, water systems, and economic resilience. For financial institutions, understanding and supporting biodiversity is becoming a core part of responsible investment.
In the Netherlands, dairy farming is the largest land user and thus, its actions significantly influence the habitats of many species. To quantify this impact of dairy farmer interventions on biodiversity, innovative approaches are needed to align investments with biodiversity goals.
With support from EUSPA, Dutch Rabobank is implementing state-of-the-art Earth Observation (EO) methodologies to track landscape cohesion and biodiversity value. Within the newly developed workflow, Rabobank utilises up-to-date, detailed land cover data for the Netherlands derived from Copernicus Sentinel-2 optical satellite imagery among other inputs. The maps are analysed to monitor biodiversity indicators such as habitat diversity, as well as landscape fragmentation and connectivity – indicators that provide critical insights into how species move across landscapes and how their movement is impacted by evolving land use. Improved landscape connectivity can significantly increase the chances of species survival which are dependent on a connected landscape. Greater species biodiversity in turn increases the resiliency of a farm and reduces its dependence on external inputs such as fertilisers.
To maximise the impact of this data, EUSPA has helped Rabobank develop advanced workflows that convert Copernicus-derived land cover data into dynamic maps and time series for key farming areas in the Netherlands, where Rabobank holds a majority market share. The methodology enables Rabobank to track how much (semi-)natural habitat remains connected over time and across large areas, and how successful regenerative farming practices or interventions are in the long term. For example, for one focus area, the landscape fragmentation did not increase from 2018 to 2023 indicating nature-neutral land use practices by the farmers in the area.
The newly implemented methodology helps Rabobank to evaluate the ecological impact of past, current and future projects, and to quantify the role of dairy farmers in the preservation of the landscape. Leveraging this standardised and cost-effective system to monitor and assess biodiversity impacts, Rabobank can help dairy farmers unlock capital that is targeted towards nature-positive investment. The workflows developed in this pilot will serve as a key pillar to develop new revenue models and serve as a standardised quantification tool for biodiversity enhancements in the Dutch dairy farming sector.
The collaboration between EUSPA and Rabobank reflects a growing trend in sustainable finance: integrating nature-based intelligence to drive strategic investment decisions. This trend will be amplified by additional, dedicated missions, such as the recently launched ESA Biomass satellite, which will further strengthen European space data and insights. By harnessing satellite data and open-source land monitoring tools, financial institutions like Rabobank can align capital with climate- and nature-positive outcomes, fostering resilience and leaving a lasting impact on natural ecosystems and economies alike.
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