HSBC Climate Partnership Celebratory Event
On Thursday 15th July, Stephen Green, Group Chairman of HSBC, hosted a drinks reception at Kensington Orangery to celebrate the achievements of the HSBC Climate Partnership.
This event was well attended by Earthwatch employees as well as Earthwatch trustees and donors and it was intended to provide the Partnership’s stakeholders with an update on its progress and the positive impacts it has had, both on the environment and on HSBC itself. A photo exhibition at the venue was used to bring the Partnership to life. Amongst Earthwatch’s images were the woods of Wytham, exotic plants in Brazil and Climate Champions measuring trees in India.
The guests were joined by Lewis Gordon Pugh, a passionate advocate of sustainability and the only person to have completed a long distance swim in every ocean of the world. Lewis shared a few of his experiences at the event which include undertaking the first swim across the North Pole in 2007 and swimming across a glacial lake under the summit of Mt Everest last month to draw attention to the melting glaciers in the Himalayas and the impact the reduced water supply will have on world peace.
Several of the 1,000 HSBC employees who have been through Earthwatch’s arm of the Partnership to become Climate Champions were also at the event to share their experiences of the programme.
In his speech, Stephen Green commented, “From the start, we wanted to create a partnership of equals with organisations that had the knowledge and skills to envision projects and then make them happen. I believe that in the WWF, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Climate Group, and Earthwatch we have a team that would be difficult to beat.
“All of the organisations we work with bring their own unique skills and expertise to the partnership while, for our part, HSBC brings a commercial perspective to the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. This is embodied by our 300,000 employees, over one thousand of whom have been trained as ‘climate champions’ and who have each returned to work equipped with ideas for specific action they can take to contribute to sustainability and to inspire others.”