An incredible win for campaigners at ShareAction. Through organising shareholders, ShareAction are making HSBC commit to:
✅ Update its coal, oil, and gas policies again before the end of the year. HSBC committed to a coal phase out last year, but this new change closes some loopholes.
✅ “Phase down” its funding of fossil fuels in line with 1.5C. This refers to the 1.5C necessary to limit warming to.
✅ Include all financing, incl underwriting, in its fossil fuel reduction targets. This is the biggy – because most of HSBC’s financing of fossil fuels is done through underwriting.
This is the definition of taking on giants. HSBC are a monster bank, with billions in dirty fossil fuel investments across the world. There are holes in the policy. But this sort of progress would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
Catherine Howarth, CEO at ShareAction, said: “Today’s commitments are an important step for HSBC that showcase the impact of shareholder engagement. The focus must now be on ensuring that these are implemented in a way that is robust and science-based. As Europe’s largest provider of financing to top oil and gas expanders, HSBC must act decisively.”
BREAKING 📢 @HSBC has just made important new commitments on climate change.
This comes after 2 years of engagement, alongside investors, & a second shareholder resolution we co-filed in February after their coal policy failed to meet our red lines 🧵👇https://t.co/DdArVFyIwq
— ShareAction (@ShareAction) March 16, 2022
Read more here: https://shareaction.org/news/hsbc-scales-up-climate-commitments-following-investor-engagement