Growing one million trees in 5 years, focusing on relevant Mexican states.

Pledge by Grupo Financiero Banorte, S.A.B.

This pledge will take place from 2025 to 2030

Pledge overview

Grupo Financiero Banorte is an ally in supporting Mexico’s transition to a low-carbon economy through innovative products and services, while empowering our workforce and communities through a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture.

Sustainability is key to our decision-making processes and priorities, therefore, we will grow 1 million trees in Mexico to ensure the connectivity of natural resources, maintain and increase forest cover with the implementation of restoration activities and actions that allow promoting the economic and social development of forest communities and maintaining essential ecosystem services, such as the provision of water, clean air and fertile soils.

Actions in this pledge

Restoring and growing trees and forest landscapes - 1,000,000 trees

• Reforestation
• Mangrove restoration

General timeline of milestones by year:

Target for year 1 (2025): 226,000 trees

Target for year 2 (2026): 168,000 trees

Target for year 3 (2027): 198,000 trees

Target for year 4 (2028): 189,000 trees

Target for year 5 (2029): 219,000 trees

General activities:

- Development of territorial information to define ecological restoration sites.

- Agreements with communities and ejidos for the ecological restoration of their territories.

- Ensure connectivity through reforestation with local communities using species suitable for ecological restoration.

Monitoring and maintenance:

- Two-year monitoring and maintenance, through a community forestry brigade, to implement forest species replacement actions, fire management actions and surveillance of pressures against biodiversity.

- Design of firebreaks and blocks for forest fire prevention.

- Ongoing education and training of local communities throughout the restoration process.

- Evaluation of the restoration strategy to determine processes for continuous improvement of reforestation techniques and increasing forest cover.

Enabling activities for trees and forest landscapes

• Nursery and seedling development
• Education and capacity building
• Community mobilisation
• Youth engagement
• Data collection, management and technological tools

To achieve the milestones of the restoring and growing activities mentioned above, we will implement the following:

- Nursery development, personnel training, acquisition of inputs, germplasm collection, and

- Plant growth record to evaluate plant growth and quality.

- Visual inspection and sampling to detect pests, diseases and/or quality problems.

- Data collection to optimize the use of resources such as water, fertilizers, and reduce costs and/or losses.

- Agreement with communities, formation of brigades, nursery training, equipment, and continuous professionalization of capacities for restoration actions.

- Training evidence, which includes programming and registration of capacities generated by topic, with the delivery date and the attendees list, with gender specifications and signatures.

- Development of geospatial information, monitoring and tracking of restoration sites using platforms such as QGIS and Pearl to identify polygons and germplasm collection areas, nurseries, and planting areas. Through these tools, the analysis of increased coverage will be carried out.

Our ecologically and socially responsible approach

In order to comply with ecological and social responsibility, we commit to:

- Restore ecosystems to maintain the diversity of flora and fauna species.

- Promote forest cover connectivity to improve the quality of environmental services.

- Engage indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in the restoration process.

- Generate jobs and economic opportunities for communities.

- Promote environmental education and awareness about the importance of biodiversity.

We will be using Principles for Ecosystem Restoration to Guide the UN Decade 2021-2030 to assess our implementation practices.

Our results tracking

1. Statistical analysis for estimates of potential carbon sequestration, water infiltration and soil erosion.

For potential carbon sequestration, a simplified aleatory inventory will be applied through sampling of reforested areas, through which dasometric variables are obtained for the estimation of volume, which is converted into biomass and finally into carbon estimates using conversion factors according to what the IPCC stipulated in 2006. The collection is usually done by collecting field information, then it is extracted into an Excel file.

For water, the catchment area and storage capacity of the individual strains will be quantified using the precipitation value of the region to quantify the infiltration capacity of the reforestation area. The data is standardized by the size of the strain used (10 cm deep by 40cm x 40cm per strain for water collection).

For soil erosion, a universal soil loss equation will be used.

Reforestamos México has an Excel with formulas to quantify according to the data collected. Data will be collected on the slope of the polygon where the reforestation was carried out, the distance from the highest to the lowest point and the total area it represents. In addition, data on soil porosity and vegetation cover will be used. Additionally, Google Earth will be used to obtain some variables.

2. Monitoring community participation and generating baselines to measure jobs, training and people benefited from reforestation.

Logical framework methodologies will be used to prepare workshops and training of field personnel related to the project. Data will be collected from the people who support the project, for instance, field interviews will be carried out with beneficiary people to identify the current state of their way of life. Paper surveys will be applied to collect data, and the collected information will be emptied into an Excel template to maintain control of the information.

Ecological metrics

1. Estimates of Potential Carbon Sequestration

2. Estimates of Water Infiltration

3. Estimates of Soil Erosion

Social metrics

1. Estimates of people who will receive training, specifying number of men and women.

2. Estimates of direct beneficiaries identified by the number of jobs created by the project in local communities.

3. Estimates of indirect beneficiaries identified using information from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography to establish a proxy through a statistical index and projection considering families of the local communities involved in the project.

Our partners

Reforestamos México, as well as other recognized organizations in Mexico.

Our locations

We are working at locations across Mexico.

The geographies will be selected based on areas with high deforestation rates and/or where the partners have interventions.