The boss of FTSE 100 banking giant Standard Chartered believes business leaders should feel “ashamed” about not speaking up for “the interests of the planet”.

Bill Winters, the American chief executive of the British multinational lender, admitted that he felt “ashamed” himself for being “less vocal” on the environment as it had become less “politically acceptable” to speak out on green issues.

He also acknowledged that the corporate world had cooled on carbon-credit schemes, partly because some had proven “not totally legit”. And he said it “doesn’t help” that President Trump’s government had stepped back from climate commitments.

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Winters was speaking at a London event organised by the Earthshot prize, an organisation that offers grants to companies developing green technologies.

Earthshot leader Prince William was in attendance, as was US billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who aimed a dig at Trump by saying: “There are lots of problems around the world. America has not been doing its share lately to make things better, I don’t think.”

Winters has introduced a series of green initiatives at Standard Chartered, an Asia-focused bank that is a shirt sponsor for Liverpool FC, during his ten years at the top. The lender is on track to hit a target of $1 billion in sustainable-finance revenues this year.

In 2020, Winters also helped set up the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, which sought to help corporations reduce their carbon footprint, including by buying carbon credits.

In recent years, there has been growing scepticism over these credits, which are designed to help companies hit net-zero goals by offsetting emissions through investments in green initiatives, such as tree-planting schemes.

“The idea was to make it easy for corporations to honour their net-zero commitments by buying carbon credits in addition to decarbonising,” Winters said of the task force.

He admitted, though, that this market “already had a bad reputation” and it had “gotten worse in the meantime because a tiny percentage of the projects … are not totally legit and they weren’t well executed. So the corporations are a little put off.”

On speaking up on green issues, Winters said that about a month ago, he had woken up feeling “ashamed because I was not anywhere near as vocal in this environment as I had been at earlier times”.

“It was very easy to be vocal four or five years ago,” he said. “When [the climate conference] Cop was happening in Britain, it was easy to be vocal. It’s a little bit harder now.”

He resolved to start being more active in talking about “the interests of the planet”, adding: “I was ashamed that I wasn’t doing my part, and I think other people should also be ashamed.

“If you stand up and say, ‘I want to do the right thing’, and then you don’t do it and you don’t follow through with your money, you’re not doing the right thing.”

Winters added: “It was very politically acceptable four years ago, and it’s less so now.”

Since Trump started his second term as US president, his government has indicated that it will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to tackle global warming.

Winters has emerged as one of the world’s most vocal executives on climate issues. Another was Bernard Looney, the former BP chief executive. In a 2020 interview with The Sunday Times, he said that “people are jazzed” about his commitment to hitting net-zero by 2050. BP diluted its commitments after his departure in 2023.