HSBC 2008 Annual Report Download - page 314

HSBC HOLDINGS PLC
Report of the Directors: Governance (continued)
Corporate sustainability / Dividends, shareholders and meetings
312
Corporate sustainability
Sustainability at HSBC is about the Group’s long-
term approach to managing economic, social and
environmental issues that are within its influence.
First and foremost, this is about achieving
sustainable profit growth so that HSBC can continue
to reward shareholders and employees, build long-
lasting relationships with customers and suppliers,
and invest in the business and in the communities
where the Group operates, for future growth.
This is central to the Group’s strategy and
acknowledges that HSBC’s continuing financial
success depends, in part, on its ability to identify and
address non-financial considerations which are
material to the business, and to mitigate the risks and
maximise the opportunities arising from them.
Corporate Sustainability Committee
Sustainability at HSBC is embedded into the
business and is overseen by the Corporate
Sustainability Committee of the HSBC Holdings
Board.
The Corporate Sustainability Committee is
responsible for advising the HSBC Board,
committees of the Board and executive management
on corporate sustainability policies, including
environmental, social and ethical issues. At an
operational level, these issues are managed on a day-
to-day basis primarily by Group Human Resources,
Group Risk and Group Corporate Sustainability.
The terms of reference of the Committee are
available at www.hsbc.com/boardcommittees. The
members of the Committee throughout 2008 were
W K L Fung (appointed Chairman on 30 May 2008)
and Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, each of whom is a non-
executive Director, G V I Davis and Lord May, who
are non-director members of the Committee. Lord
Butler retired as a Director of HSBC Holdings and
ceased to be a member of the Committee on 30 May
2008. N R N Murthy was appointed a member of the
Committee on 21 November 2008.
There were four meetings of the Corporate
Sustainability Committee during 2008. Following
each meeting, the Committee reports to the Board on
its activities.
Sustainability at HSBC
HSBC understands the business imperative of
investing in its employees, the communities it serves
and the environment it relies on. The Group’s
priorities are the long-term development and
engagement of its employees, increasing its
understanding of risk arising from environmental,
social or reputational issues and investing in
education and entrepreneurship to allow
communities to build capacity and individuals to
thrive.
HSBC focuses its environmental initiatives
primarily on addressing and responding to issues
associated with climate change including energy,
water management and biodiversity. Social
initiatives are centred on helping to support
education and on enabling access to financial
services to the world’s poor.
Climate change has the potential to have a
material impact on HSBC’s customers and therefore
on HSBC’s long-term success. In 2008, HSBC built
on its understanding and expertise on responding to
climate change and Lord Stern continued to advise
the Group Chairman on economic development and
climate change. HSBC was one of the first financial
institutions to adopt the Climate Principles, a
voluntary framework for action on climate change
that covers all areas of financial services.
HSBC also participates in the Prince of Wales’
Accounting for Sustainability project which seeks to
develop systems to help public and private sector
organisations account more accurately for the wider
social and environmental costs of their activities.
Sustainability risk
HSBC’s approach to managing sustainability risk is
detailed on page 254.
Social and community investment
HSBC focuses its community investment activity on
education and the environment because HSBC
believes these are fundamental to building and
developing communities and are prerequisites
for economic growth. In 2008, HSBC made
charitable donations totalling US$102 million
(2007: US$101 million). Around half of the annual
donation is channelled to education programmes and
25 per cent to environmental projects. The remainder
is spent on country specific projects, disaster relief
and matching staff contributions. No political
donations were made during the year.
HSBC’s global education programme focuses
on three major themes – financial literacy,
disadvantaged children and environmental
education. The global environmental programme
is the HSBC Climate Partnership, a five year
US$100 million commitment to working with
The Climate Group, Earthwatch, Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute and WWF on tackling
climate change.