HSBC launches climate change partnership

08 December 2004

HSBC announces a three-year, £650,000 collaboration with Newcastle University and the University of East Anglia (UEA), called the ‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’¹. The partnership is a global programme to research climate change and other major forms of environmental damage, society’s awareness of the issues, and to develop technologies to overcome some of the problems identified.

The partnership between one of the world’s largest banks and two acknowledged five-star universities for earth sciences, environmental sciences and engineering follows an earlier announcement that HSBC is to become the first major bank in the world² to commit to going carbon neutral³.

Dr Keith Tovey, who will become HSBC Director of the Low Carbon Innovation Centre within UEA’s Carbon Reduction programme (CRed) in January 2005, said: “The keys to ameliorating the effects of climate change are to understand why it’s happening, what people think of it, and then develop pragmatic solutions. The ‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ aims to extend further the understanding of climate change and attitudes towards it, and to develop technologies and other practical measures to address the issues it identifies.”

Professor Paul Younger, who will be elected to the new HSBC Chair in Environmental Technologies and Geothermal Energy at Newcastle University in January 2005, said: "The partnership differs from many academic exercises in that it is about doing as well as learning and research. We aim to understand change in order to change understanding, promoting effective means for renewable energy generation and conservation, developing sustainable means for addressing the legacies of older forms of energy generation."

Although both partner universities are based in the UK, it is the aim of the partnership to have a global impact, acknowledging that climate change is a global issue. Both universities have extensive worldwide networks and HSBC, with 10,000 offices in 76 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa, will use its own global reach to further enhance the project.

As part of the partnership’s knowledge dissemination role, there will be regular academic seminars on environmental technologies, with representatives from the both universities, the Indian Institute of Technology and other partner organisations, as well as the HSBC Annual Environmental Public Lecture.

HSBC’s group chief executive, Stephen Green, says: “HSBC is already in the top 50 companies globally in terms of climate leadership⁴ and the third highest-rated bank in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index⁵, and we believe that corporate social responsibility underpins sustained earnings growth. Our commitment both to going carbon neutral and our support of Newcastle University and UEA are major strands of our strategy.

“‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ supports our carbon management plan, and it brings us closer to two institutions with a formidable capacity and reputation in the area of environmental research and technology and who have a track record of working with each other.

“Together, I believe we can make a major contribution to increase our understanding, so that we can take early action to reduce the impacts we are having on our fragile planet.”

‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ complements the bank’s five-year, US$50 million programme to support three leading environmental charities - Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Earthwatch and WWF - launched in 2002 and called ‘Investing in Nature’.      
Meanwhile, the HSBC’s move towards carbon neutrality aims to ameliorate the direct impact it has on the environment, with its buildings, air travel, and so on. This complements the actions the bank is already taking to address the indirect impact it has on environmental and social issues arising when financing projects for customers.

In 2003, HSBC adopted the Equator Principles. These are voluntary guidelines that direct the bank not to lend to projects where the borrower is unable or unwilling to comply with the Principles or the bank’s own internal policies, whichever carries the higher standard. HSBC is also developing a range of socially responsible investment funds.

Footnotes

1: HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation
The ‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ is a three-year, £650,000 partnership with Newcastle University and the University of East Anglia (UEA). Its aims are to research climate change and other major forms of environmental damage, society’s awareness of the issues and to develop technologies to overcome some of the problems identified.

Newcastle University’s contribution to ‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ will be in the field of environmental technologies. The university’s Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability (IRES) will:

• establish the HSBC Chair in Environmental Technologies & Geothermal Energy (Professor Paul Younger);
• develop the HSBC Programme of Minewater Remediation work in India, focusing on environmentally sustainable management of water in the coalfields.  This will include a PhD studentship in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi;
• develop new community-based ceramic drinking-water purification technologies, through a new HSBC pilot programme in Bangladesh;
• establish HSBC Masters Scholarships and PhD Studentships, covering Environmental Engineering for Developing Countries, Clean Technology for China, and International Water Governance;
• Establish core support for IRES linked to the new flagship building.
  

UEA’s contribution to ‘HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation’ will be in verifying carbon reduction technologies and techniques, examining the different pathways to achieving significant CO2 reduction through the combination of actions involving technological acceptance and human behaviour. The university’s Carbon Reduction programme (CRed) will establish the HSBC Low Carbon Innovation Centre, with Dr Keith Tovey as its director, which will:

•  provide research into climate change and climate change strategy, focusing on economics, environmental management, and methods of public engagement and decision-making;
•  facilitate direct involvement in low carbon technology and exposure to businesses developing low carbon technology
  

2: HSBC Holdings plc is the second largest bank in the world, ranked by market capitalisation.

3: HSBC announced on 6 December that it is to become the first major bank in the world to commit to going carbon neutral and will achieve this by reducing energy use, buying green electricity and then offsetting the remaining carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by investing in carbon credit or allowance projects.

4: HSBC is in the top 50 companies in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s 2004 Climate Leadership Index. This is drawn from the FT500 Global Index, which means that HSBC is in the top 50 companies globally in terms of climate leadership. The Carbon Disclosure Project is the co-ordinating secretariat for institutional investor collaboration regarding climate change. www.cdproject.net

5: The Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. www.sustainability-indexes.com