HSBC and Climate Change

Climate change represents the single largest environmental, social and economic challenge this century and will impact HSBC's customers, employees, and shareholders. It is, therefore, a key focus of HSBC's sustainability strategy.

Climate change is not just an environmental issue, but an economic and a social one as well. Climate change presents both risks and opportunities for our business, and the potential impact on HSBC is far reaching. For HSBC, climate change is primarily an economic development issue that may affect emerging economies more than developed ones. It is therefore central to the Group’s emerging markets strategy. With 330,000 employees and around 10,000 offices around the world, climate change events could affect our decisions on where to locate our operations, owing to the impact on populations, demographics, food availability and pricing and health.

Our clients could be affected in similar ways, with the increased frequency of droughts, floods and storms having a particular impact on those relying on agriculture, transportation, tourism and the infrastructure industry. As adviser, lender and investor, we can play an important role in encouraging the companies and projects we finance to manage climate change-related risks and opportunities. Seen less and less as a purely environmental phenomenon, climate change also has the potential to affect businesses through regulatory change and through new opportunities to invest in companies and assets.

At HSBC, we seek to tackle climate change by focusing on mainly three areas, managing our footprint, managing the way we do business, and working with partners.