Met Office partners with HSBC in Climate Change Research Programme
Greenwise Staff
14th October 2008
The UK Met Office has joined forces with HSBC to offer fund managers specialist research on climate change to help them with investment decisions about clean energy and carbon markets.
The association is one of several HSBC Global Banking and Markets has brought together under a new service it has launched aimed at investment managers called the Climate Change Research Facilitation Programme. Other partners include Ernst & Young’s Renewable and Environmental Infrastructure Advisory division, New Energy Finance, a specialist provider of information and research to investors in renewable energy, low-carbon technology and the carbon markets, and Risk Management Solutions, a world leader in catastrophe risk management.
A spokesperson for HSBC said the initiative was unique in the City because it brought together key partners that were “outside finance”.
“When you see this sort of thing it is usually all banks together and this one isn’t,” he said.
Commenting on the programme partners, Samir Assaf, head of Global Markets, HSBC Global Banking and Markets, said: “Climate Change is set to become one of the defining investment opportunities in the years ahead. HSBC’s partners in this initiative are clear market leaders in their field.”
Robert Napier, Met Office chairman, added: “The impact on climate change and weather on our world has been accepted by the finance industry as a key driver of financial decision making. Through the use of our expert research and advice, fund managers will be able to better manager their risks and adapt portfolios to meet the challenges of our changing climate.”
The move is a further step by HSBC to position itself as a leading financial service provider in the massively expanding climate change market. The sector is now worth £175 billion – the equivalent of the GDP of Greece.
Last year, the bank launched the HSBC Climate Change Index, a global benchmark index designed to reflect and track the stock market performance of key companies best placed to benefit from the challenges presented by climate change. It also sponsors the HSBC Climate Partnership, a five-year £58 million programme to help research the impact of climate change with partners The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and World Wildlife Fund.