Environment
Engagement
Standard Chartered's global reach and strong partnerships give us a real opportunity to engage our employees and other stakeholders, helping them understand the importance of environmental issues and what they can do to make a difference.
We need engaged and motivated employees to deliver our operational impact targets, to further integrate environment into our lending processes and to develop innovative products and services. Our global reach and strong partnerships give us an opportunity to engage with internal and external stakeholders and support worldwide government action to tackle environmental degradation and climate change.
Our engagement programme was informed by our involvement in the Forge V Climate Change project in 2007, working with a group of other financial institutions on identifying sector best practice approaches to integrate climate change into financial institutions' operations, including employee engagement.
We are using our voice at a UK and international level to influence policy makers, to drive progress in the development of regulatory frameworks and to engage our customers, suppliers and the general public in environmental issues.
For example, Mervyn Davies, Chairman of Standard Chartered, is a member of the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change. One of the main aims of this group is to break the environmental 'Catch 22' where governments resist introducing new policies, fearing they will be unpopular with businesses and where businesses are unable to scale up investment in low-carbon technologies because of a lack of government direction and support.
In 2007 Standard Chartered signed the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative Declaration on Climate Change ahead of the G8 summit. The declaration reinforced the financial service sector's commitment towards international regulation favouring a shift to a low carbon economy.
We are implementing a Group-wide campaign to engage our employees in the importance of climate change and protecting the environment and the actions they can take to make a positive difference, both at home and at work.
A key element of our engagement has been the Environment Challenge which we launched in 2007 as part of our unique team marathon series, The Greatest Race on Earth: Race for a Living Planet. This aimed to raise awareness of global environmental issues and how individual behaviour can make a difference. People were encouraged to make a commitment to change simple things in their everyday lives, such as switching off the lights when leaving the room or turning the tap off while brushing teeth, that cumulatively make a significant contribution to environmental protection. Over 3 million pledges were made in support of a national team. Individual pledges have the potential to deliver annual savings of five billion litres of water, over 76,000 tonnes of CO2 and 250,000 trees. Visit www.thegreatestrace.com/pledgenow to find out more and make your pledge.
WWF provided support and advice through this initiative and will receive a $1 million donation from the Bank at the race conclusion to support vital environment conservation projects benefiting the three countries with the most pledges per capita. The winning countries will be announced in April 2008.
Some of the tools we have developed can be accessed below:
Quick facts
- USD 10 billion to finance renewable energy
- Greatest Race on Earth: Race for a Living Planet environment challenge launched