Spatial finance and environmental deterrence
Overview
We are pioneers of 'spatial finance' and coined the term. Spatial finance is the integration of geospatial data and analysis into financial theory and practice. We founded and host the Spatial Finance Initiative (SFI), a programme that brings together capabilities in space technology, data science, and financial services to mainstream geospatial analysis in financial decision-making. Within SFI, our GeoAsset programme builds open, asset-level datasets tied to ownership across major sectors and geographies, providing the underlying data layer on which spatial finance applications depend.
The cluster also covers environmental deterrence.
Environmental deterrence is the use of observable evidence to make harmful activity costly to its perpetrators. Spatial data, asset-level data, and machine-readable disclosure are the building blocks: they convert previously opaque conduct into evidence that regulators, courts, lenders, insurers, and counterparties can act on.
The cluster examines how these tools shift incentives across the financial system. We study the conditions under which observability deters harm rather than merely measuring it, the institutional design choices that turn data into accountability, and the limits of deterrence where evidence is contested or where enforcement capacity is weak.
We work with regulators, supervisors, and litigants on the practical application of these tools, including the use of asset-level evidence in stress testing, prudential review, and climate- and nature-related litigation.
Our work
More geospatial data is being collected than ever before. When combined with artificial intelligence to scan and interpret it, unprecedented capabilities are becoming available. These rapidly growing data assets feed increasingly sophisticated predictive models to generate new insights and results.
This has the potential to transform the availability of information in our financial system. It will allow financial markets to better measure and manage environment-related risks, as well as the wide range of other factors that affect risk and return in different asset classes.
Understanding all the possible use cases is in its infancy. Geospatial data and analysis enabled by new technologies will also allow us to (re)examine a range of hypotheses, with implications for financial theory as well as practice.
We work through the Spatial Finance Initiative (SFI), which aims to mainstream geospatial capabilities enabled by space technology and data science into financial decision-making globally. SFI undertakes and coordinates research and channels it into real-world finance-related applications.
Research topics include:
- Using geospatial data and analysis to better measure environmental and social risks and impacts.
- Making accurate, comparable, and comprehensive asset-level data tied to ownership publicly available across all major sectors and geographies.
- Spatial reporting to complement traditional and integrated financial reporting.
- Understanding and testing possible implications of spatial finance for financial theory.
- Climate- and environment-related litigation and liabilities, including the role of asset-level data and geospatial evidence in establishing causation and accountability.
- Biodiversity and nature-related geospatial risk and externalities.
- Asset-level disclosure standards and machine-readable reporting that strengthen supervisory and market discipline.
