Today we finance a number of industries that significantly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. We have a climate strategy in place to help our customers to reduce their emissions - and to reduce our own. Our innovation and nature-based solutions partnerships are one element of our wider climate strategy. Find out more about the projects we’re supporting.
Since 2021, we've been supporting the National Trust with woodland habitat creation, by increasing hedgerow and tree planting, amongst other schemes. With our support, the National Trust project has currently reached 10 sites across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with nearly a million trees planted and 670 hectares of wooded habitats.
Careful consideration has been given to the selection of trees by the National Trust, to ensure they're suitable for each location and planted to increase biodiversity. In addition, we've supported the National Trust with over 18,000 hours of volunteering opportunities from HSBC colleagues since the start of the partnership in 2021.
We've also been supporting the National Trust for Scotland with their Threave Landscape Restoration Project. Since 2021, 60.4 hectares of land at the disused dairy farm has been restored to wetland and woodland habitats. To support this work, the National Trust for Scotland have created a new 125m boardwalk allowing people to explore the area’s wetlands in new way.
Innovative livestock management has also been trialled with a herd of Belted Galloway cattle fitted with GPS to allow them to graze and continue to balance nature recovery, and the landscape has been opened up with the removal of existing fencing. The National Trust for Scotland plan to establish Threave as a centre of excellence for landscape restoration. You can read more about the restoration project.
We're supporting early-stage ventures to develop services or technologies which have the potential to adapt or mitigate against the effects of climate change. Since the start of the programme, 126 ventures have participated in accelerators based at the University of Birmingham and Imperial College London.
The ventures receive support from the university accelerators through mentoring, access to research expertise, and the opportunity to access workspace and collaboration opportunities. Ventures will have the chance to develop and demonstrate new technologies and create commercially viable solutions that contribute to communities and reduce CO2 emissions.
The accelerator programme can be for:
Find out more about the Greenhouse at Undaunted (Imperial College London).
Get more details about the UoB Energy Systems Catapult.
