The Future is Collective Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 2025

10. Ibid.MapBiomas Alerta is an initiative built on the MapBiomas platform which validates and brings together deforestation and land degradation alerts from various detection services across all of Brazil’s biomes. From 2019 to 2024, MapBiomas generated more than 450,000 alerts across Brazil. Importantly, the MapBiomas Alerta initiative publishes alerts for all native vegetation loss without assessing the legality or responsibility of the event. In Brazil, banks are required to comply with environmental regulations when extending credit. To aid in this process, leading financial institutions in Brazil – including the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES), Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, Santander, Banco Itaú and Bradesco Bank – use MapBiomas Alerta, informing their risk management processes by identifying deforestation events on farmers’ land and blocking loans to landowners whose properties have exhibited illegal deforestation activity. For example, BNDES has integrated with MapBiomas data to ensure that at-risk properties are identified before extending loans. Similarly, at Santander Bank, if a client’s property shows evidence of deforestation for which the client is unable to provide proof of legal authorization, the bank requires the loan to be reimbursed. In 2023 alone, over 18,000 credit applications have been denied due to the representation of deforestation with evidence of illegality identified in the MapBiomas Alerta platform.CASE STORY Finance institutions using MapBiomas for credit decisions10 The Future is Collective: Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 34