Santander selects Groundsure for Environmental and Climate Due Diligence

05 April 2022

The bank partners with the leading environmental analytics business to screen commercial transactions for legacy and ongoing environmental and climate change risks

Groundsure, the UK’s authority on environmental risk, has launched a dedicated service to support Santander with its UK commercial lending business.

Launched in 2006, the Groundsure Siteguard solution has been successfully supporting the UK Commercial lending business for both Barclays and more recently, the Natwest/RBS Group.

Santander now joins as the third of the top 5 commercial lenders in the UK that are now taking the Groundsure solution to provide a definitive opinion for its valuer network on lending security.

Designed in conjunction with Santander, the new Siteguard Climate report includes a four-tier risk assessment summary with explicit opinions on environmental liability, loan security risks and potential property value impacts.

It is also the first report for major banks to provide an assessment on the physical climate risk from flooding both today and projected forward over the medium term.

Each report is backed by bespoke recommendations for the site and is built in accordance with Santander’s specific requirements with its valuation network.

Dan Montagnani, CEO of Groundsure commented: “We are delighted to be working with Santander to support their due diligence on their commercial property transactions.

Siteguard Climate is an attractive proposition for banks to manage their current and forward exposure to environmental risks, especially in the context of greater compliance and due diligence requirements.

With the Bank of England having set out its expectations on banks embedding their approaches to climate related financial risk, we are helping Santander to meet their compliance obligations and to ensure they are well positioned to manage this at scale for their commercial portfolio.”