British bank HSBC has partnered with Google Cloud, in an effort to accelerate climate mitigation and resilience through financing and support for companies involved in the ‘Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability’ programme.
Under the new partnership, Google Cloud will introduce companies in the programme to the specialist HSBC climate tech finance team to explore venture debt financing options. HSBC will seek financing opportunities for companies within its sustainability ecosystem, as part of its ambition to deploy $1billion of climate tech finance.
The Google Cloud Ready validation programme is open to companies with solutions available on Google Cloud that help customers achieve goals including carbon emission reduction, increased sustainability in value chains, and processing of ESG data to help identify climate risks.
Natalie Blyth, global head of commercial banking sustainability at HSBC, explained: “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.”
The partnership builds on the launch of an HSBC credit risk advisory tool on Google Cloud. It also follows HSBC’s announcement of its ambition to deploy $1billion of financing to early-stage climate tech companies and the launch of HSBC Innovation Banking – a specialised banking proposition to support a broad range of innovation businesses and their investors.
Supporting firms key to climate action
Justin Keeble, managing director for global sustainability at Google Cloud, also added: “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.”
Google Cloud will also continue to increase the number of partners in the Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability programme over the next two years.
The partnership launches with a venture debt financing package from HSBC delivered to GCR-Sustainability-validated company LevelTen Energy. LevelTen Energy provides renewable transaction infrastructure for buyers, sellers, advisors and financiers in the clean energy economy. To date, the company has facilitated over $5billion in clean energy transactions.
Ross Trenary, chief financial officer of LevelTen, also explained the impact the package could have: “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.”