Greening the greenbacks

Banks launch billion dollar initiatives

International mega-bank HSBC is spending $100 million on a scheme to promote “action – not apathy” among its 300,000-strong global workforce. The five- year training programme isn’t designed to get staff greeting customers with bigger smiles, but to help them grasp environmental issues.

25,000 volunteering placements in local communities are up for grabs, and 2,400 employees will join scientists at Earthwatch – one of the NGO partners in the scheme – for ‘hands on’ climate change research. ‘Climate champions’ could find themselves measuring trees, collecting soil samples and counting animal populations – all on bank time.

“It’s not just a day out in the forest counting badgers,” insists HSBC’s advisor on the environment, Francis Sullivan. “The scheme is something that top management wants its staff to do – not only to enjoy, but because it’s something they have to understand more about.” He explains that the Climate Partnership sits alongside the bank’s range of sustainable investment products, and its drive to reduce its emissions. Not all staff will be donning wellies; many have the less glamorous task of improving the environmental efficiency of their own offices.

HSBC’s scheme is the latest in a raft of green finance sector initiatives. Earlier this year Bank of America unveiled a $20 billion initiative to encourage the growth of environmentally sustainable business. Its ten- year plan provides financial support for investors in a range of products, technologies and construction developments. Not to be outdone, rival Citigroup has pledged $50billion for a similar scheme, which includes specific investment in alternative energy and clean technology. Both corporations promise to tackle their own greenhouse gas emissions, although the commitment that Citigroup is trumpeting actually represents a relatively miserly reduction of 10% by 2011. 

Responding to news of the initiatives, Alice Chapple, Forum for the Future director of sustainable financial markets, said that in the last decade, commercial banks have moved “from philanthropy to risk management,” and have reached “a recognition of the enormous opportunities in environmental innovation.” This was no “green bandwagon,” she added, but “more evidence of leading companies understanding that they need to adapt to a carbon-constrained world in order to survive”.
– Ruth McCance and Hannah Bullock

19 September 2007

Hannah Bullock and Ruth McCance