HSBC under fire over Sarawak logging clients

Straits Times 4 Nov 12;

Kuala Lumpur - Banking group HSBC has been accused of providing financial services to companies suspected of contributing to Sarawak's dwindling tropical rainforests.

Global Witness, a London-based advocacy group, has released a report claiming that some of the bank's clients in Sarawak have been involved in unsustainable logging in the Malaysian state on Borneo Island, according to The Economist.

HSBC, the weekly magazine wrote, has maintained commercial ties with some of the most active logging and plantation companies there, despite their failure to meet the bank's sustainability policies.

In response to the report, HSBC said it is "not accurate" to state that its clients are in violation of its forestland and forest products policy.

It said current data shows that 99 per cent of its forest sector clients worldwide (by size of lending) are "compliant" or "near compliant" with its policy.

"We consider engagement rather than exclusion as the right approach for a responsible bank to take," The Economist quoted HSBC as saying.

It adds that it will stop working with companies that "do not make credible progress towards compliance within a given timeframe", though in some cases, "we are obliged to wait until a loan facility expires".