HSBC facing backlash over ‘vague’ $1trillion green plans

HSBC is facing a backlash over its “vague” $1trillion green plans today as it prepares to face down shareholders at its annual general meeting.

An investor group including the Ethos Foundation and Royal London Asset Management, which cumulatively manage some $900bn in assets, have slammed the bank’s board for failing to “explicitly set out how they intend to use” the trillion-dollar commitment to sustainable finance.

Under the current plans, investors “don’t have enough information about how exactly [the cash] will be spent” and it is unclear if the bank is “really on the path to net zero”, the group said in a statement.

“The target as it currently stands is too broad and vague,” said Jeanne Martin, head of banking programme at the campaign group ShareAction, which is coordinating the group of investors.

“It gives the impression the bank is scaling up its efforts on green finance without demonstrating the difference it will make, or whether it is financing the green activities that are most needed.”

At HSBC’s AGM this morning, the group is to demand the bank “make it clear how its green finance target will be spent across environmental and social themes”, including a specific target for how it will fund renewable energy.

The backlash marks another blow to HSBC after a wave of criticism over its green efforts in recent years.

After launching an advertising campaign talking up its decarbonisation efforts in 2022, the bank was rebuked by the advertising watchdog for failing to acknowledge its own contribution to emissions.

In November, ShareAction published an analysis of green finance and reporting from Europe’s largest banks, including HSBC, which claimed a lack of transparency around sustainable finance claims could leave them “open to greenwashing accusations”.

A spokesperson for HSBC said: “We will be answering all their questions at our AGM and note in 2020, we outlined an ambition to deliver $750bn to $1trillion of sustainable finance and investments by 2030, and since then have reported our progress in our annual report with a detailed breakdown across green, sustainable (which combine green and social) and social products.”