• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Mega-Shareholders Demand Real Net-Zero Action from HSBC

January 15, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes

/NYU Stern

/NYU Stern

1
SHARES
 

A bloc of HSBC shareholders have filed a resolution urging Europe’s largest bank to stop funding the fossil industry, with coal at the top of the list. Among these activist investors are the world’s largest publicly-traded hedge fund company and Europe’s largest listed asset manager. 

Hedge fund firm Man Group PLC and asset manager Amundi SA are two of 15 institutional  shareholders which, in partnership with 117 individual investors, are supporting the resolution, reports Bloomberg Green. This phalanx of stakeholders, which oversees a combined US$2.4 trillion in investments, is being led by UK-based ShareAction, a group that previously guided a 2010 campaign by 6,000 pension fund shareholders to force colossal fossils BP and Shell to reveal their exposure risks associated with tar sands/oil sands operations. That resolution did not pass, but the campaign is considered a watershed moment in the use of so-called “pension power” to effect change.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

Now, on behalf of the HSBC shareholders, ShareAction is asking the bank “to publish a strategy to reduce its exposure to fossil fuel assets and set targets in line with the Paris Agreement.” 

Along with a demand to reduce its exposure to coal, “the investors also asked HSBC ‘to consider the social dimension of the transition to a low-carbon economy’ when devising its strategy and to not ‘rely excessively’ on negative emissions technologies that remove carbon when developing targets,” writes Bloomberg.

The shareholder pressure comes three months after the London-based bank pledged to support the transition to a net-zero economy by prioritizing green financing and investments, a move that includes a “soft target” deadline of achieving a net-zero client portfolio by 2050.

Bloomberg adds that HSBC has also committed to making both its own operations and its supply chains net-zero by 2030.

Such commitments are long overdue, said ShareAction senior campaign manager Jeanne Martin. She noted that more and more investors are becoming aware of the extent to which the financial sector bankrolls the world’s biggest emitters.

What the HSBC shareholder resolution asks for, writes Bloomberg, are concrete details about how the bank plans to cut its exposure to fossils, details that are currently absent from its net-zero strategy.

“Such an ambition needs to be underpinned with a real transition plan and reflect the sense of urgency highlighted by climate science,” said Helen Price, stewardship manager at Brunel Pension Partnership, which has signed on to support the resolution. “Without a credible transition plan, the net-zero ambition isn’t a new and improved recipe for the bank, it’s just new packaging.”

Describing HSBC as “a critical player in emissions output and potential reductions,” Jason Mitchell, co-head of responsible investment at Man Group, told Bloomberg that if the bank commits to concretizing its ambition of being net-zero by 2050, it could “send an important signal to other fossil fuel financiers of the road ahead.”



in Climate & Society, Climate Action / "Blockadia", Community Climate Finance, Ending Emissions, Fossil Fuels, Insurance & Liability, International, Jurisdictions, Oil & Gas, UK & Europe

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Environmental Defence Canada/flickr
Shale & Fracking

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 17, 2023
169
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr
Oil & Gas

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
114
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
314

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
314
Environmental Defence Canada/flickr

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 17, 2023
169
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
175
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
234
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
438
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
114

Recent Posts

EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
123
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
78
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
94
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
185
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

First Nation Scorches Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Over Toxic Leak

March 8, 2023
374
MarcusObal/wikimedia commons

No Climate Risk Targets for Banks, New Guides for Green Finance as 2 Federal Agencies Issue New Rules

March 8, 2023
245
Next Post
Americasroof /Wikimedia Commons

$85 Billion in Coal Investments Leave BlackRock Open to Charges of Greenwashing

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}