Financial giant HSBC is also one of the global pioneers in corporate sustainability and responsibility. Ranked top of the Hang Seng CSR Survey, the bank has put sustainability at the center of its business. Teresa Au, head of corporate sustainability for HSBC in Asia Pacific, explains its CSR practices to Green Channel’s Julie Yoon-Hussey.

 

 

Teresa Au: Back in 2003, HSBC Group set up a corporate social responsibility committee to try to look at the relationship between CSR and the business. Over the last few years, we have evolved CSR into sustainable business development, into a wider scope, going beyond social responsibility. In October 2005, we became the world’s first major bank to become carbon neutral, ahead of our target of achieving this by the end of 2006.

 

The reason we wanted to become carbon neutral was not just to demonstrate our leadership, but it’s a way that we want to learn through our experience – the whole process of how we manage our carbon footprint and at the same time when we go forward to advise our customers on this process. We’ve been through it already so we would be in a better position to provide advice and also support our customers in this journey.

 

Our regional corporate sustainability office was set up in 2007 and in fact by me. I was appointed into this position to look at how we can integrate sustainability with the business.

 

Under our scope of responsibility, we look at community investment, doing good for the community in both the environmental side and also in the social side. We also covered looking at the risk management, which means we would define the lending policy so that we will help our customers to better manage their own risk and the risk they pass on to us through our financing, for example, for some sensitive sectors like forestry, financing of forestry infrastructure.

 

For mining, metals or even chemicals, where there will be large pollutions, waste being produced—we would be very careful in our financing decisions. We would like to support our customers to improve their practices so that they can meet international standards on environment and also on the social side. I think that helps them to become more sustainable in this way. In fact, a number of customers initially thought that the bank is very tough. Why are we advising them against some practices or to invest more on some practices that will help them to reduce their pollutions or reduce energy usage?

 

At the end of the day, they find that because of our support and advice, they have become profitable companies and they have been able to expand their business. Having said that, we do walk away from customers and partners who are unable to fulfil our sustainability guidelines.

 

If they do not operate on models which are good to the community and to the environment, and they have no intention to improve their practices, then we walk away from them. It’s something that I think is pretty unique for banks or HSBC to do while other banks would be happy to grab on to any business, in a world of competition.