US$100m HSBC programme to combat climate change worldwide

PROGRAMME:HSBC has created a five-year, US$100m partnership to respond to the urgent threat of climate change worldwide with the support of The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF.

The HSBC Climate Partnership will help some of the world’s great cities - Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York and Shanghai - respond to the challenge of climate change and create ‘climate champions’ worldwide who will undertake field research and bring back valuable knowledge and experience to their communities.

It will also conduct the largest ever field experiment on the world’s forests to measure carbon and the effects of climate change; and help protect some of the world’s major rivers - including the Amazon, Ganges, Thames, and Yangtze - from the impacts of climate change, benefiting the 450 million people who rely on them.

Speaking at the London news conference to launch the programme, Sir David Attenborough, said, “As we increase the production of greenhouse gases, we face the very real prospect of causing irreversible damage to the Earth’s more fragile eco-systems. We are not powerless if we act now, collectively and decisively. We can significantly reduce the causes of climate change and greatly improve the chances of safeguarding for future generations the spectacular diversity of life on Earth.”

HSBC Group Chairman Stephen Green said, “The HSBC Climate Partnership will achieve something profoundly important. By working with four of the world’s most respected environmental organisations and creating a ‘green taskforce’ of thousands of HSBC employees worldwide, we believe we can tackle the causes and impacts of climate change. Over the next five years HSBC will make responding to climate change central to our business operations and at the heart of the way we work with our clients across the world.”

HSBC’s US$100 million partnership - including the largest donations to each of these charities and the largest donation ever made by a British company - has significant programme targets and offers transformational support for the environmental charities.

The donation will help to deliver increased capacity, help the charities to expand across new countries and research sites, and increase their access to more people.