CSR Initiatives at HSBC: Making Good Business Sense

Headquartered in London, the HSBC group operates in five regions: Europe, Hong Kong, the rest of Asia-Pacific including the Middle East and Africa, North America, and South America.

(Refer to Table I for a list of some of HSBC's largest and well-known subsidiaries).

To more easily promote the group as a whole, HSBC was established as a uniform, international brand name in 1999. In 2002, HSBC launched a campaign to differentiate its brand from those of its competitors by summarizing its unique characteristics with the words, 'The world's local bank'...

After having published their first Environmental Policy in 1997 and statement of business principles and values in 1998, the group appointed Lord Butler as non-executive director to oversee the 'HSBC in Community' philanthropic program in 1999. The HSBC education trust was later set up in the UK and starting 2001, the group regularly reported their progress in CSR activities through yearly CSR reports. In the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 2003 report released by HSBC, CSR was defined as addressing the expectations of customers, shareholders, employees, and other stake-holders in managing business responsibly and sensitively for long-term success.