To promote environmental sustainability, HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (滙豐台灣商銀) held a nature conservation activity at Guandu Nature Park (關渡自然公園) on Saturday.
HSBC Taiwan CEO Adam Chen (陳志堅) led more than 250 colleagues, together with family and friends, to help conserve the wetlands, find out about the local ecology, and explore the importance of biodiversity and the relationship between the wetlands’ carbon sequestration function and climate change.
HSBC Taiwan corporate sustainability head Janice Hwang said that “the decline of Earth’s biodiversity has become a major topic in global environmental conservation, and wetlands are one of the key areas for biodiversity conservation because of their unique and diverse habitats.”
Photo courtesy of HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd
“Guandu Nature Park has a special natural ecology, nurturing diverse wetland organisms, and is classified by BirdLife International as one of the Important Bird Areas,” she said.
“HSBC Taiwan is the first private company in Taiwan to sponsor Guandu Nature Park on a long-term basis, and has pro-actively invested in wetland conservation, helping establish the park as a nature education center in this country,” Hwang said, adding that since 2002, more than 17,000 volunteers from HSBC have devoted more than 30,000 hours to the park.
“Today, Guandu Nature Park is a rich ecological resource environment and an ecological classroom that both teaches and entertains,” she said.
This year’s activity was focused on environmental education and wetland protection.
Through fun activities, HSBC volunteers learned about climate change and ecological conservation, and cleaned up the environment to help protect the wetlands through various tasks, including relocating frogs into ditches, removing weeds and trash, clearing areas around saplings and removing invasive species to help indigenous species return.
In addition, the HSBC Taiwan management team planted indigenous tree species to help preserve the biodiversity of the park.
HSBC has been operating in Taiwan for nearly 40 years and has always taken a socially and environmentally responsible approach to its business, promoting environmental sustainability goals and making sustainable development a long-term strategy.
This year, HSBC Taiwan won first prize in the Foreign Enterprise category of CommonWealth Magazine’s Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility Award and the 2022 Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards’ Most Prestigious Sustainability Award — Top Ten Domestic Corporates Award.
HSBC’s commitment to Taiwan is not limited to financial services, but also to financial education and social responsibility. Each year, HSBC Taiwan provides employees two days of paid volunteer leave to engage in giving back to the community, encouraging employees to take part in environmental activities, as well as helping disadvantaged groups.
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