Switching on to Renewables

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HSBC aims to source a quarter of the energy used to power its buildings around the world from renewable sources by 2020. This is part of its commitment to improving the environment and helping communities.

It is a challenging goal but the bank has already signed four agreements with renewable energy providers in the UK and India, which together will generate the equivalent of 9 per cent of HSBC’s global energy needs.

The long-term agreements represent an important step towards the bank’s wider goal of cutting annual carbon emissions globally from 3.5 tonnes per employee in 2011 to 2.5 tonnes by 2020.

In the UK, HSBC has signed two agreements with renewable energy providers. The first is a 12-year agreement with a wind farm in the East of England.

HSBC has also signed a similar agreement with a second wind farm in the UK that will provide renewable energy from January 2016. Taken together these UK projects are expected to account for 40 per cent of HSBC’s UK electricity requirements, helping the bank reduce its environmental footprint.

In India, a new solar plant in Hyderabad was built after HSBC agreed in 2014 to buy the plant’s energy at a fixed price for 10 years. This project will generate enough equivalent clean energy to power four HSBC offices in the region and save up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

By signing these long-term agreements, rather than buying renewable energy from existing sources, HSBC is supporting developers to build new and additional wind and solar farms. 

As well as using more renewable sources, HSBC is aiming to use less energy in the first place by improving the energy efficiency of its buildings. This is part of the bank’s broader goal to manage the impact of its operations on the environment.