HSBC has partnered with Google Cloud to accelerate climate mitigation and resilience, offering finance support for companies in the programme.
The ‘Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability’ programme – a validation programme for companies with solutions available on Google Cloud – aims to help customers achieve goals including carbon emission reduction, increased sustainability in value chains, and processing of ESG data to help identify climate risks.
Justin Keeble, Managing Director for Global Sustainability at Google Cloud, commented: “The scale of climate challenge requires a global ecosystem of technology providers bringing solutions that drive impact.
“This is why we launched our Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability ecosystem which – one year in – includes leading climate tech companies. Many of these partners need access to finance and we are excited to partner with HSBC to support firms key to climate action.”
The UK-based bank will utilise its specialist climate tech finance team to explore venture debt financing options.
Natalie Blyth, Global Head of Commercial Banking Sustainability at HSBC, said: “A step change is needed to scale up the new technologies that will play a critical role in supporting global decarbonisation.
“Partnerships and innovative financing solutions are key, especially during a period when investment in climate tech startups has fallen.
“By combining financing support, cloud technologies and connectivity to partners across our combined footprints, we will help climate tech vendors accelerate their growth, and develop the solutions we urgently need at scale.”
HSBC has said that the partnership looks to build on the launch of an HSBC credit risk advisory tool on Google Cloud, following the bank’s announcement of its ambition to deploy $1bn of financing to early-stage climate tech companies.
Furthermore, building on the launch of HSBC Innovation Banking, a specialised banking proposition to support a broad range of innovation businesses and their investors.
LevelTen Energy, a transaction infrastructure for buyers, sellers, advisors and financiers in the clean energy economy, is the first company to benefit from the collaboration, with the bank providing its venture debt financing package to the firm.
Ross Trenary, Chief Financial Officer of LevelTen, stated: “We are proud to be a GCR-Sustainability-validated company and are looking forward to working closely with the team at HSBC.
“This venture debt package will enable us to scale our platform, which provides transaction infrastructure for carbon-free energy buyers, sellers and financiers. HSBC’s global reach aligns with our international presence, while giving us opportunities to connect with HSBC clients that are looking to achieve sustainability goals.”
