A New Meeting Point to Promote Sustainable Development in Chile, Colombia and Peru

On September 6, the announcement of the new Regional Holding became effective: with Nuam Exchange, which was born from the integration of the Santiago, Colombia and Lima stock exchanges, we built a new, unique, open and transformative market in Latin America. This new company recognises the importance of a more sustainable world and the opportunity to positively impact the environment in which it operates, integrating environmental, social and corporate governance variables for capital markets into its strategy.

The Nuam Exchange seeks to be aligned with the best sustainability practices in the development of its activities, ensuring that its operations are carried out with excellence and the highest ethical and transparency standards. Along these lines, it seeks to continue with the sustainable roadmap of all the companies that make up its economic group, with the intention of navigating along the path that allows it to contribute to the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Currently, society faces the challenge of taking action in the face of one of the worst crises on record - climate change. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which made clear the urgency of managing measures to confront this complex scenario, invited different actors from both the public and private sectors to incorporate within their strategies the best practices to combat climate risks.

Within the framework of Nuam’s commitment to the environment, the operation in Chile, through the Santiago Stock Exchange, obtained the CarbonNeutral® certification at the company level, in accordance with the guidelines of the CarbonNeutral Protocol, the main global framework of carbon neutrality. In order to achieve this, it worked with CarbonNeutral Chile, the representatives for Latin America of Climate Impact Partners, a specialist in carbon market solutions for climate action, carrying out an independent diagnosis of greenhouse gas emissions with an operational focus produced by direct and indirect GHGs.

Subsequently, after internal analysis to continue reducing SSE´s inevitable GHGs, it decided to neutralise its operational impacts in 2021 and 2022 through the acquisition of verified credits from the “Cuel Wind Power” project, in the Biobío region (southern Chile), a wind farm of 22 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 33 MW that produces enough energy to supply electricity to 55,000 homes. This initiative allows clean and renewable energy to be injected into the local energy matrix, which reduces more than 32,000 tons of CO2e annually.

Considering just 2021, the emissions mitigated by the Santiago Stock Exchange are equivalent to the travel of more than 1 million kilometers by a passenger vehicle, or the charging of 35 million cell phones. Furthermore, its contribution directly impacts Sustainable Development Goal 13 of Climate Action, one of the entity’s priority focuses.

On the other hand, in Colombia, Grupo bvc: the Colombia Securities Exchange and its subsidiaries, has contributed to reducing the climate impact of its operations since 2017, supporting initiatives to protect and conserve the environment and biodiversity. In 2021, it took a great step in implementing the necessary actions in its environmental management for the group to be carbon neutral in its entire operation since 2020 and certified in 2021, offsetting and establishing initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint. In 2022, it offset 2.9 times its entire carbon footprint, thanks to its carbon neutrality project, which was verified by the Colombian Institute of Technical Standards and Certification (ICONTEC).

The project, supported by the company, benefits more than 131,000 hectares in the Colombian Amazon that are part of the forest mitigation program that helps 22 communities of the Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua Indigenous Reservation (TICOYA). Furthermore, in 2022, complementing the compensation actions with carbon credits, the bvc Group reactivated its corporate volunteer program “Bosque BVC”, an activity in which employees planted 500 trees with the support of the Natura Foundation in the Encenillo Biological Reserve, a private area protected by civil society.

Under these initiatives, the company continues to contribute to the Colombian NDC goal, which is to reduce the GHG inventory by 51% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, thus generating a positive impact and an example in the region, reinforcing its commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Our operations in Chile and Colombia have reported their climate risks since 2021 under the TCFD standard. In both stock exchanges we have made progress in understanding our climate change risks and opportunities by establishing governance, strategy, management, metrics and objectives. In the case of Grupo bvc in Colombia, the TCFD report was in 10^th place in the climate finance ranking of the Colombian Climate Asset Disclosure Initiative - CCADI 2023 - among the 48 companies evaluated, a project sponsored by UK Pact. Also in our three marketplaces we have promoted the disclosure and better understanding of climate risks and double materiality among market participants with the support of the SSE, GRI and IFRS among other allies.

The next challenge we are facing at Nuam Exchange is to align our goals in terms of sustainability, using as a reference what has been developed in Chile and Colombia, and adding our operation in Peru. In the ladder, we want to contribute more effectively to the reduction and management of the impact of the effects of climate change. We will seek to reduce our carbon footprint and offset all greenhouse gas emissions generated by our operation through an environmental management program and the execution of actions to offer carbon zero products and services throughout our operation in the capital markets of Chile, Colombia and Peru.

Finally, we want to contribute to the transition of our countries towards a low-carbon economy, where we believe that the risks of climate change also bring opportunities to be a catalyst of transformation and economic growth, by promoting the efficient use of natural resources, biodiversity, innovation, the development of new technologies and competitiveness to create opportunities for prosperity for all.