Serious about sustainability? A history of HSBC’s climate commitments

It feels like a long time ago that HSBC began cultivating its image as a climate-conscious bank. Back in 2021, it enlisted the comic actor Richard Ayoade to star in adverts trumpeting the bank’s green credentials, telling us that “climate change doesn’t do borders”. The same year, HSBC had signed up to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and pledged to provide up to $1 trillion to help the net-zero transition.

Since then, HSBC’s public pledges have been repeatedly undermined by the deals it has done behind closed doors. And on Friday, it announced its decision to quit the NZBA altogether, concluding a four-year period in which its climate credentials were questioned. Jeanne Martin, of shareholder activists ShareAction, described the news as “another troubling signal around the bank's commitment to addressing the climate crisis”.

HSBC said it will remain engaged with Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, an umbrella group, to support the transition, and will continue to set targets informed by the latest scientific evidence.

But quitting the NZBA is just the latest event to cast doubt on HSBC's commitment to sustainability. But was the bank ever serious about it? We look at some of the key moments.

October 2020
HSBC becomes one of the first global banks to set a net-zero goal for all emissions linked to its operations by 2050. It claims it will “prioritise financing that supports our transition to a net-zero economy”. The CEO at the time, Noel Quinn, writes to customers expressing the banks’ new climate ambition.

October 2021
Amid great fanfare at Cop climate talks in Glasgow, HSBC becomes one of 43 founder members of NZBA. The group is part of a wider finance sector initiative called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero that aims to align its activities with emissions cuts needed to stave-off global heating.

November 2021
TBIJ reveals that HSBC led efforts to water-down the NZBA’s commitments – pushing for more time to set targets and calling for science-based targets to be cut.

October 2022
The UK’s advertising watchdog bans two “misleading” HSBC ads. The Advertising Standards Agency upheld complaints about two bus stop ads that talked-up the bank’s finance for green industries while failing to mention the money it continued to pump into those companies contributing the climate crisis.

November 2022
TBIJ reveals that HSBC had been counting finance for a range of companies worsening the climate crisis as “sustainable”. In total, HSBC helped raise billions of dollars for a range of big polluters, including a provider of floating oil drilling platforms and an Indian cement company that emitted more CO2 annually than Greece – all through “sustainability-linked bonds”, a misleadingly named new product.

December 2022
HSBC announces it will no longer invest in oil and gas, including in the Amazon rainforest. ShareAction welcomes the announcement and two years later, NGO Stand.Earth finds that the policy is working. “So far, HSBC has been true to their word … This shows it can be done and has been done, even by a company that used to have a big stake,” it says.

January 2023
TBIJ reveals that HSBC worked on a loan deal for a German energy company bulldozing a village to make way for a coal mine expansion. What’s more, bankers even considered calling it “green”. Ultimately, they didn’t. But nor did they want their role in the deal to be made public, TBIJ revealed.

September 2023
As part of its strategy to support innovation, HSBC announces that it will pump $1bn into tech start-ups developing climate solutions, making cash available for companies working on electric vehicles, battery storage and low-carbon agriculture.

January 2024
John Hinshaw, then the bank’s chief operating officer, stays tight-lipped about the bank’s fossil fuel finance when he runs into ITV’s Joel Hills at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Hills chases Hinshaw through an inflatable igloo, seeking a response to the question of why the bank helped raise more than $47bn for companies expanding fossil fuel production despite its net zero pledge, as revealed by TBIJ.

That same month, HSBC launched its Net Zero Transition Plan, described as an “important milestone in our journey to achieving our net zero ambition.”

April 2024
Quinn, who oversaw HSBC’s rebranding as a climate-conscious bank, unexpectedly announces his retirement. After his replacement Georges Elhedery takes over the post in September, the bank says that top sustainability staff will no longer be represented at the executive level. Two months later, the bank’s chief sustainability officer quits.

Meanwhile, in the US, the imminent second term of Donald Trump sparks a backlash against so-called “woke capitalism”. The country’s big six banks pull out of the NZBA, which responds by scaling back its remit and softening the membership criteria.

February 2025
While industry-wide coordination starts to unravel in a new political climate, many banks claim they still maintain their own net-zero goals. But HSBC delays plans to neutralise the emissions from its own operations – a small part of its overall contribution compared to the emissions it finances – by 20 years. It remained committed to reaching net zero across its portfolio by 2050, it said.

May 2025
HSBC investors reacted angrily to further TBIJ revelations that it worked on a billion-dollar deal for the mining giant Glencore in 2023, claiming it had ‘bulldozed’ its policy restricting finance for companies expanding coal production. Weeks later, shareholders press HSBC on its climate record at its annual meeting.

June 2025
TBIJ finds that HSBC also breached the policy in 2024 with a deal for a controversial Indian steel company.

ShareAction’s Martin pointed out that weeks prior to the decision to quit NZBA, shareholders with £1.2 trillion in assets under management called on the bank to reaffirm and build on its existing climate progress, rather than backtracking to protect livelihoods and the economy around the world.

Commenting on this latest news, Martin said: “It sends a counterproductive message to governments and companies, despite the multiplying financial risks of global heating and the heatwaves, floods, and extreme weather it will bring.”