TNFD Locate: which sites are in or near sensitive areas
The Locate phase of the TNFD's LEAP approach asks an organisation to find where its direct operations and value chain interface with nature, and to identify which of those locations are sensitive: areas of importance for biodiversity, of high ecosystem integrity, of rapid decline, of high physical water risk, or of importance for ecosystem services including to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. ERWAY Legality Assessment answers the first and last of those per site — protected areas, protected wetlands, heritage sites and Indigenous and community lands — with one outcome per site and the record that supports it.
The TNFD names protected areas under national or international designation, Key Biodiversity Areas and protected wetland sites among the categories a Locate assessment should test against. The product checks every site polygon against international protected-area records, protected wetlands, World Heritage and biosphere sites and land-tenure records, and reports the overlap in hectares, the relation to the site and the date of the check. Key Biodiversity Areas and water stress are not in the product; the ESRS E4 and GRI 101 pages cover the disclosures that reuse the same site list.
What Locate asks
Where are the assets and activities — own sites and priority value-chain sites — and which of them are in or adjacent to sensitive locations? The TNFD's own guidance on sensitive locations expects the test to be made against protected areas, Key Biodiversity Areas and protected wetlands at least, at the level of the individual site, with the result carried into the Evaluate and Assess phases.
What the product answers for each site
For each site polygon: whether it overlaps a protected area and by how many hectares; whether it is inside, near or in the vicinity of a heritage site or a protected wetland, with the footprint's confidence; whether it lies on Indigenous or community land and under what tenure; and which threatened species have been recorded inside or within a kilometre. One outcome per site, the strictest tier, and an export with every finding and its date.
What remains yours
Evaluate, Assess and Prepare. The product does not measure dependencies or impacts, does not score ecosystem integrity or water risk, and does not draft the disclosure. It gives the Locate phase a defensible site-level record — which sites, which designations, how much overlap, checked when — and the SFDR PAI 7 page shows how an investor reads the same record.