--- title: who sells nature and climate location data canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-sells-nature-location-data markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-sells-nature-location-data.md subtitle: "a file, a score, or an open list — and none of them is the watershed" category: nature-finance --- # who sells nature and climate location data *a file, a score, or an open list — and none of them is the watershed* A corporate risk desk, a lender, or an insurer already pays for a pin. The plant, the warehouse, or the mine shows up on a map, with flood, heat, or habitat laid over the site. The purchase is a file, a score, or an open list. **Geospatial risk** is the exposure that file is about: where the asset sits, and what that ground faces. The watershed, the forest, or the floodplain was already there. A watershed, a forest, or a floodplain exists whether or not a vendor mapped it. [Ensurance](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) is how that living system gets funded. The file is how a desk finds it. :::johnson **the file finds the place. it does not hold the place.** A vendor can name the site. Holding the watershed, the forest, or the floodplain is a separate act. ::: ## who sells geospatial risk Headquarters, a country, and a sector code hide the site. The useful question is which facility, and which living system it depends on. Six names cover most of what a desk is offered when it goes looking for nature and climate location data. Each product answers a question the desk already has. Funding the living system sits outside the sale. | who | what they sell | what they do not do | | --- | --- | --- | | NatureAlpha / AlphaX | Facility locations, nature and climate layers, and a commercial nature value-at-risk that includes transition risk as well as dependency | Fund the living system | | MSCI, with First Street | Climate-risk scores on properties and issuers | Fund the living system | | XDI | Asset-level physical climate risk for companies | Fund the living system | | CGFI GeoAsset | Open facility lists for cement, steel, pulp, and others, with ownership | Fund the living system | | The Landbanking Group | NatureCadastre, their open parcel layer for Europe, and Landler, the paid stack above it | Fund the living system | | ENCORE | A free sector screen of dependencies and impacts, the coarse end of the ladder | Fund the living system | Two cement plants can share a sector code and sit on different rivers. The file is what tells them apart. The river was there either way. ## naturealpha and alphax **NatureAlpha** sells company facility locations together with nature and climate layers, in a product set called **AlphaX**. A portfolio can see where the sites are, and which nature and climate layers cover those sites. Their commercial nature value-at-risk includes transition risk as well as dependency. The site percentage people quote is a different product, and [what nature value at risk actually measures](https://ensurance.app/guide/what-nature-value-at-risk-actually-measures?from=guide) keeps that distinction. The locations, the layers, and the percentage do not fund the watershed, the forest, or the floodplain under the pin. ## msci, with first street **MSCI**, with **First Street**, sells climate-risk scores on properties and on issuers ([how a climate-risk score reads the asset](https://ensurance.app/guide/the-120-million-diagnosis?from=guide)). The score does not fund the living system. ## xdi **XDI**'s job is asset-level physical climate risk for companies. The reading is built from the facilities a firm operates, so a lender or an insurer can attach that physical exposure to the company that runs them. The reading does not fund the living system those sites depend on. ## cgfi geoasset **CGFI GeoAsset**, from the Spatial Finance Initiative at the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, publishes open facility lists. Cement, steel, and pulp and paper are in the set, with other industries beside them. Each record carries a location and an owner. There is no score on the row. The project page is the [GeoAsset project](https://cgfi.ac.uk/spatial-finance-initiative/geoasset-project/). The list does not fund the forest, the river, or the floodplain beside the plant. ## the landbanking group **The Landbanking Group** publishes **NatureCadastre**, their open parcel layer for Europe: ecological condition tied to the plot. **Landler** is the paid stack above that layer. Neither funds the living system on the land. ## encore **ENCORE** is a free sector screen of dependencies and impacts, the coarse end of the same ladder, and it does not fund the living system ([a sector is not the site](https://ensurance.app/guide/the-missing-object-is-the-graph?from=guide)). ## what the pin is for Use the file when you need the site and the layer on it. Use the score when you need a property or an issuer ranked for climate hazard. Use the open list when you need the owner and the coordinate. Use the sector heatmap when you are still at the industry and have not reached the plant. Geospatial risk has done its job when the place has a name. The watershed, the forest, or the floodplain that name points at is still a living system. Funding it is the step these products leave open. ## what the shop reads We use location layers inside the shop, where a place is underwritten. The layers already on that desk include flood, wetlands, protected areas, critical habitat, ecoregions, watersheds, terrain, tree canopy, impervious cover, and a multi-year summer temperature normal. We do not sell the file. Those layers stay inside the work of reading a place. A place name is a claim. A boundary or a coordinate tied to that place is evidence. Both travel with the hold on the living system. ## the place under the pin The desk that already pays for geospatial risk can see the site. A corporate risk team, a lender, or an insurer may already have the pin. The watershed, the forest, or the floodplain under that site stays unfunded until someone holds it. What we deliver is a hold on the natural asset the file already named. For capital, that work is natural capital valuation and ensurance issuance on the place. The unit is the watershed, the stand, or the floodplain. See how that capital role is structured for [capital providers](https://ensurance.app/solutions/capital-providers?from=guide&topic=location-data), and browse the places themselves in [natural assets](https://ensurance.app/natural-assets?from=guide). If the pin is already on your desk, [talk to us about that place](https://ensurance.app/contact?from=guide&topic=location-data). ## sources [GeoAsset project](https://cgfi.ac.uk/spatial-finance-initiative/geoasset-project/) — UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, Spatial Finance Initiative. Open facility lists with location and ownership, including cement, iron and steel, and pulp and paper. [what nature value at risk actually measures](https://ensurance.app/guide/what-nature-value-at-risk-actually-measures?from=guide) — the percentage, left on that page. [climate-risk scores on properties and issuers](https://ensurance.app/guide/the-120-million-diagnosis?from=guide) — climate-risk scores on properties and issuers. [the missing object is the graph](https://ensurance.app/guide/the-missing-object-is-the-graph?from=guide) — a sector heatmap and the site. ## the series - [what asset location data actually is](/guide/what-asset-location-data-actually-is?from=guide) - [who sells nature and climate location data](/guide/who-sells-nature-location-data?from=guide) - [what earth observation data shows](/guide/what-earth-observation-data-shows?from=guide) - [the place keeps the record](/guide/the-place-keeps-the-record?from=guide) - [hold the place the file already found](/guide/hold-the-place-the-file-already-found?from=guide)