Through our partnership we provide HSBC staff and leaders with a deeper understanding of sustainability and climate change issues, and how these are linked to HSBC’s sustainability strategy. We support them to identify individual actions to help address these issues and align their work with HSBC’s strategic priorities.
By engaging HSBC staff and senior leaders in immersive learning experiences, we are helping to embed sustainability into everyday business at one of the world’s leading banks. At the same time, employees are contributing data that enables valuable scientific research into climate change-related issues.
Truly embedding sustainable practices in businesses requires buy-in from senior leaders; Earthwatch and HSBC have therefore co-created the Sustainability Leadership Programme (SLP). HSBC’s senior managers participate in an intensive training programme, gaining a deeper understanding of sustainability and climate change issues.
The SLP helps attendees understand their own role as leaders in driving a more sustainable way of doing business and in supporting the business and its customers through the transition to the low-carbon economy. Participants work alongside Earthwatch scientists, collecting scientific data to support research into climate resilience in cities.
In 2019, Earthwatch started running strategic and action-driven one-day workshops with a range of HSBC business functions. These workshops give leaders from a particular function at the bank an opportunity to work together to increase their understanding of current sustainability challenges, to engage with HSBC’s sustainability agenda, and to explore ways to drive this and take collective action within their own spheres of influence.
Earthwatch’s first formal partnership with HSBC was Investing in Nature, a five-year partnership launched in 2002, featuring WWF and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. During the programme, HSBC sent 2,000 employees on Earthwatch field research projects around the world and helped Earthwatch train 230 scientists from the developing world on Earthwatch projects. HSBC participants undertook environmental projects in their workplace or local communities, supported by grants from HSBC.
Following the success of the Investing in Nature partnership, in 2007 HSBC launched the HSBC Climate Partnership. Working with The Climate Group, Earthwatch, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF, the HSBC Climate Partnership was a US$100-million, five-year programme to reduce the impact of climate change and speed up the adoption of low-carbon policies. Earthwatch helped influence the way HSBC does business by helping HSBC employees understand more about the risks and opportunities associated with climate change. Employees used that knowledge to reduce their own impacts at home, at work and within HSBC operations.
From 2012, HSBC focused on the global freshwater challenge, which threatens both biodiversity and human health. We are celebrating the impact of the HSBC Water Programme as it draws to a close in 2019.
Interested in working with Earthwatch? Find out how your business can help protect the environment.
Images: John Hunt, Jay Ortiz
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