SINGAPORE: HSBC says Singaporeans have responded strongly to the bank's recent initiative which raises money to fund climate change research in Singapore.

As part of its Green Sale, HSBC has for the past month donated S$2.80 for each financial product sold, and 28 cents for every customer who signs up for Internet banking - thus reducing their paper use.

Guy Harvey-Samuel, CEO, HSBC Singapore, said: "Every time a customers buys a number of different products from us, not only do they get a discount because it's in the Singapore sale time of the year, we also make a generous donation to a number of different climate change projects which are being conducted in Singapore at the moment.

"Certainly volumes going through the call centre and across our websites have increased by at least 50 per cent. We're tremendously encouraged by the reception that the HSBC Green Sale has received."

Since 1989, HSBC has been one of the most prominent advocates of environmentally-friendly projects here, and is responsible for sponsoring the hugely popular Treetop Walk in MacRitchie Reservoir.

The lender says financial targets are the least of its concerns when it comes to such activities.

"We don't do these projects because we think they're going to enhance our bottom-line. And its something that I don't actually measure... to be honest. We do them because they're the right thing to do.

"And as I say, how do we measure whether we have been successful or not, you can see we are because more people than ever before go to visit the HSBC Treetop Walk," said Harvey-Samuel.

"I go there quite a lot, and the number of people who go there on a Saturday morning are quite incredible. And we're looking forward to visitors going back to Pulau Ubin and to Chek Jawa now that it's open again... and more people going to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve now that its summer."

Last year, HSBC was named the Financial Times' inaugural Sustainable Bank of the Year, after it became the first world bank to become carbon neutral.

But the lender says there is more work ahead. Harvey-Samuel said: "I think climate change and sustainability are the two most pressing issues that we, as a community in Singapore and across the world, have to actually face up to.

"And it's not only us who have to face up to it, but whatever we do will impact on our kids, our children, and our children's children. So whatever we can do to enhance the sustainability of global resources, whatever we can do to slow down and hopefully stop climate change, we have to do as a community together."

The Green Sale is part of HSBC's US$100 million global programme, called The Climate Partnership, set up to tackle climate change. - CNA/yy