EnglishProjects finance
Through their credit policies, banks have the potential to play an upstream role in socially responsible initiatives.
Integrating social and environmental criteria along with the conventional criteria for evaluating credit risk is a major challenge for social responsibility in the banking sector.
For HSBC, responsible finance is about following the compliance rules the Group has established and avoiding any legal and financial risks as well as any risks to the Group’s reputation.
HSBC has taken a number of measures to implement its project financing policy in keeping with a sustainable development approach:
• as one of the first to adopt the Equator Principles towards : in 2003, HSBC Group joined other major financial institutions in promoting the revised version in 2006. The Equator Principles provide a framework for managing social and environmental risks associated with the financing of projects involving over USD 10 million
• HSBC did not step there, however. It also created its own set of principles governing the financing of projects in specific sectors with significant social or environmental impacts: forests, fresh water, chemicals and extractive industry, energy HSBC Group has also decided to gradually withdraw from the weapons manufacturing and sales sector.
The project financing directives are applied uniformly to all HSBC entities around the world. Each employee involved in the project financing process receives special training on these issues and is required each year to review Group policy, and must make an oral and signed declaration that they have met this obligation.
• Young generations must succeed to secure the future of the communities supported by HSBC. HSBC France is contributing to the Group’s efforts by supporting talent young artists, notably through its photography foundation, Fondation HSBC pour la photographie, and young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, mainly through its educational foundation, Fondation HSBC pour l’Education. It also contributes to the Group’s worldwide programmes on biodiversity protection, water protection, combating climate change and HSBC Climate Partnership.
