KEY STATS:

• 180,000+ Sustainability Tasks completed

• 95% found the daily learning useful

• 81% increase in confidence talking to clients about sustainability

• 82% improved understanding of the CMB Sustainability Strategy

• 5,540 trees planted through Tree Nation

HSBC Commercial Banking (CMB) provides financial services to over 1.3 million businesses in 53 countries and territories around the world. It offers a wide range of solutions including loans, payments and insurances, and employs more than 10,000 people. 

Challenge

Following the launch of their new sustainability strategy, CMB were looking to engage colleagues across the business and create a grass roots movement towards a more sustainable culture.

The aim was to raise awareness of, and engage colleagues with, the three strategic levers of the CMB Sustainability Strategy, whilst also helping colleagues to understand the impact of their own behaviours and actions on the planet, the CMB business and their lives. Importantly CMB wanted to help colleagues build new sustainability habits and skills, whilst also building cohesion and connectivity around the topic of sustainability within teams. 

Solution

Knowing that more than 20,000 colleagues across the wider HSBC business already had access to Kaido as a result of their participation in a Kaido Wellbeing Challenge, the CMB Sustainability team partnered with Kaido and sustainability experts Giki to build a 4-week Sustainability Challenge designed to help engage CMB employees around the world. 

Building the Perfect Challenge

HSBC leveraged the employee engagement expertise of Kaido and Giki’s 40+ years of sustainability leadership experience to build a bespoke, 4-week Sustainability Challenge focussed on 4 key themes; 1) Sustainability and Me 2) My Lifestyle Choices 3) My Impact 4) Our Sustainable Future. 

The Challenge was made available in English, Spanish and Mandarin and deliberately designed to take no longer than 5 minutes per day for employees to engage with. The key was providing evidence-based sustainability information to employees in a fun, accessible and actionable way.

Harnessing Leadership Support

Knowing the importance of visible senior leadership support when it comes to employee engagement, HSBC and Kaido created a series of videos featuring CMB CEO Barry O’Byrne and Global Head of Sustainability Natalie Blythe, inviting colleagues to join the Challenge. In addition, regional leads from 47 CMB countries were designated as ‘Champions’ and invited to a Challenge briefing, where they were given a bespoke Engagement Pack to help them launch, mobilise and maintain engagement with the Challenge in their respective regions. 

Driving Ongoing Engagement

Through daily bite-size learning, tasks, quizzes, team-based activities, case studies and more, HSBC engaged employees around the world, helping them to build new sustainability skills and behaviours, whilst strengthening their commitment to the company’s sustainability mission.

Weekly Lunch and Learn sessions, delivered by sustainability experts and focussed on; climate change, sustainability at work, and commuting and home working, helped participants access science-based sustainability learning in a collaborative and accessible way.

Teams worked together to earn ‘Sustainability Points’ that powered their progress up and down virtual leaderboards and could be redeemed against real life prizes and rewards. HSBC also took advantage of Kaido’s partnership with Tree Nation, planting more than 5,540 trees to support reforestation of the Burnt Mkussu Forest in Tanzania.  

Evaluating Impact

Providing objective data and insights back to CMB to evaluate programme impact and mould future employee engagement initiatives was key to the success of the Challenge. Using the GHG Protocol framework, focussed on employee home working and commuting behaviours, Giki were able to present key findings, insights and intervention opportunities to CMB and its employees during the Challenge. Whilst Kaido’s own engagement, learning and impact data collected pre, during and post Challenge created a compelling post-challenge Report evidencing improvements in understanding and action around the topic of sustainability.

Results

Improving sustainability understanding across the CMB business

Over the course of the 4-week challenge, more than 180,000 Sustainability Tasks were completed by participants. 95% found the bite-size daily learning useful in building new sustainability skills and behaviours and of participants that completed the Challenge, 94% rated their understanding of the topic of sustainability as good or strong post-Challenge. 

Evidencing commitment to sustainability with customers and prospects

One of the stand out metrics from the Challenge was the increase in confidence from participants talking about sustainability to their clients and prospects (81%). Over the course of the Challenge, 4,127 Sustainability related conversations were shared between participants and their peers in other organisations, giving invaluable insight into how HSBC customers are approaching sustainability and showcasing CMB as an exemplar in the space. 

> “I think engaging in meaningful conversations with customers about their challenges and the opportunities that sustainability presents has been incredibly rewarding. It’s inspiring to see how HSBC can play a pivotal role in supporting them on their sustainability journey.”

Turning Sustainability strategy from policies and presentations to action and commitment. 

By the end of the programme 82% of participants said that they had an improved understanding of the CMB Sustainability strategy as a result of their participation in the Challenge, and 90% were practising sustainability habits at least weekly by the end. 

As the HSBC and Kaido x Giki partnership enters its 3rd year, CMB continues to work with Kaido to increase understanding of and engagement with their sustainability strategy and further embed sustainability skills and behaviours as part of the CMB culture, positioning them as a thought leader in sustainable banking. 

> “Overall a fantastically well run, informative, easy to use and engaging programme.

Given the size and scope of the staff at hand, this is an outstanding engagement tool. Thank you HSBC!”

> “This challenge has everything, it keeps you engaged and informed of our role, our impact on climate change, and what we can do individually as well as a bank. Excellent Challenge, well done Maxin and the team!”