HSBC has reduced its ESG financing and solutions teams after downgrading its chief sustainability officer’s role and pushing its Scope 3 emissions target back by 20 years.

Farnam Bidgoli, its global head of ESG solutions, is being reassigned to an unspecified new role, and it is unclear how her responsibilities will be reallocated. A second London-based member of the ESG solutions team has been reported to have left HSBC, although this could not be confirmed.

The bank also let go Luying Gan from its Hong Kong team last month. She had been head of sustainable debt capital markets for Asia-Pacific since late 2018, having moved to sustainable finance two years earlier.

The moves come after the bank dropped the position of CSO from its executive board in October as part of a wider streamlining by chief executive Georges Elhedery. A month later, CSO Celine Herweijer a former climate scientist quit from the role. She was replaced in February with HSBC career banker Julian Wentzel.

HSBC is going through a major restructuring across the bank that could see it axe more than 15,000 jobs, or up to 8% of its staff. Last month the bank also pushed back its target to achieve net zero in its supply chain by 20 years to 2050, saying progress in reducing Scope 3 emissions had been slower than expected.

Even so, HSBC has affirmed its commitment to sustainable finance. Its recent 2024 annual report said it has facilitated almost US$400bn of sustainable finance and investment since 2020, including just under US$100bn last year.

Cross-sector

Before her ESG solutions role Bidgoli was head of sustainable bonds for EMEA, having joined HSBC in late 2016 after seven years at ESG ratings and research firm Sustainalytics.

HSBC launched the ESG solutions team – which it described as working with all its bankers “across sector, product and geography” – in 2020. It was originally led by Jonathan Drew in Hong Kong, supported by Bidgoli in London and a New York colleague no longer with the bank.

Bidgoli subsequently passed responsibility for ESG bonds to Anjuli Pandit when the latter joined the bank from BNP Paribas in late 2021.

Bidgoli ascended to global head of ESG solutions the following year when Drew a 30-year HSBC veteran – became head of global banking sustainability for Asia-Pacific.

Her team included London colleagues with EMEA and MENA responsibilities, as well as others in Hong Kong and New York covering Asia and the Americas, respectively. The team’s successes included roles as ESG structuring agent for two huge Gulf IPOs in 2022 – Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s US$6.1bn issue and Borouge’s record US$2bn offering in Abu Dhabi.

Source: IFR