What Is Your Company Doing to Go Green?

What is your company doing to "go green" and how is that affecting your employees?

We want to create a corporate culture of environmental stewardship where team members consider the environment whenever they make a decision related to, for example, lending money, developing anew product

Here are a few examples of our actions, which, in combination, will lead to meaningful and long-lasting results.

Lead by example: Wells Fargo is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2007 Green Power Partner of the Year. We conserve resources though facilities management and procurement services. We purchase energy-efficient computers that are EPEAT-and Energy-Star rated. We participate in the U.S. Green Building Council's Pilot Portfolio Program to 'green' the design of our new retail stores.

Engage team members: We maintain executive-level environmental council and support Green Teams that are sprouting up throughout our company. Green Teams are groups of team members organized to promote environmental stewardship at a local level; they support efforts to save paper, encourage use of reusable cups, buy biodegradable kitchen supplies, and more. Our mantra is "our environment - everyday actions make a difference" and our efforts call for contributions from all levels of the organization.

Focus on business goals: We tie environmental initiatives to our business objectives. We've set external and internal lending targets for environmentally beneficial business opportunities. In 2006 we established an Environmental Finance group that specializes in the finance of renewable energy projects. Since then we have committed to invest more than $400 million in renewable energy projects and have increased customer relationships with renewable energy companies.

Our efforts are extensive and these are just a few of many examples of the actions we're taking to drive environmental stewardship at Wells Fargo and help ingrain it into our culture so that it becomes a permanent part of what we do and who we are as a company.

Mary Wenzel, vice president, Environmental Affairs, Wells Fargo

In 2001 we set out to understand what our energy footprint was around the globe.

We put an information system into place in order to track our energy usage at about 14,000 properties globally. By 2005 we set a baseline of a 10% reduction in our emissions by 2011. In order to meet that commitment, we are currently pursuing some different tracks, including energy-efficient investments, procurement of green energy and a behavior change among our employees.

For instance, our real estate and operations employees are working on how we use our computers, from turning them off at night, to using software that allows us to have them go into a sleep mode and be awakened for software upgrades. Certainly, there is also the more general common sense behavior, like flipping things off when not needed.

In some of our markets, entire cities are taking on initiatives to shut lights off for an hour each day. However, we have faced some challenges when it comes to "Citi-wide" projects. In many cases we lease properties so it is difficult for us to have a "Citi-wide" recycling program because the property management of our buildings slightly differ. The property management may have different recycling protocols so not all recycling is done on-site. As a result, we can take an "umbrella" position on many topics, but the day-to-day implementation is difficult.

Citigroup is very concerned with reducing its energy footprint and has taken on many initiatives to do so. In addition to engaging our employees, we are also connecting our industry experts with environmental groups so they can share perspectives and successfully reduce our footprint.

Bruce Schlein, vice president environmental affairs, Citi

We have quite a few "green" Initiatives at City National Bank's Asset-Based Lending department.

In 2006/2007 we converted all our ABL client files to electronic files on a shared drive. These can now be accessed by our collateral analysts working in our offices as well as by our collateral examiners working out in the field. This makes our process much more efficient while saving a lot of paper. We also maintain all our tracking systems online, tracking exam schedules, turnaround times for collateral reviews and exams, receipt of collateral reports, etc. This allows us to maintain good control and perform ongoing reviews of our execution of our internal processes, while reducing risk and saving paper.

In 2007 we completed the upgrade of our Stucky loan accounting system, so now we offer StuckyNetLink, which allows our clients to deliver their collateral reports electronically, post borrowing base online, etc. Most of our clients now report to us electronically. This is convenient for our clients, and it saves them the cost of mailing or overnighting their reports to us-plus saves more paper for both them and us.

For those few clients who report to us on paper, we use ScanSoft software to convert image files to text files and Monarch to convert electronic print image-formatted files to Excel so we can analyze them electronically. With the conversion of most of our clients to electronic reporting, we are able to analyze their data electronically using the Excel or Asset Reader programs. We also deliver all of our work products (collateral review reports and examination reports primarily) electronically to our internal and external clients, as applicable.

Eighteen of the 20 ABL colleagues here at City National Bank commute in a greener fashion, using bus, train, subway, carpool, and our examiners telecommute. In fact, we e-mail password-protected audit files to our contract examiners, and our internal examiners can access the audit files using VPN on their laptops, eliminating mailing costs and travel time to the office. Our internal examiners now come into the office only once a quarter for our departmental meetings, and spend the rest of their time productively in the field. This lowers our costs plus reduces vehicle emissions and greenhouse gases at the same time.

The manager of the ABL dept. (that's me) also sits on City National Bank's Green Ladder Committee, which is focused on the bank's environmental efforts.

Plus the bank as a whole does the following, in which ABL participates: recycles all paper, which goes into shredding bins first, recycles aluminum cans and plastic bottles, and recycles used household batteries. We have motion detector sensors on our overhead lights in offices, so they go off when not in use. And our collateral reviewers are located next to windows, so they can use more natural lighting.

The bank does many other things as well that mitigate our footprint and help our clients mitigate theirs as well. These include preferred loan rates for "green" vehicles, online banking, electronic loan applications and electronic bill pay. We use "green" cleaning supplies at most of the facilities we occupy, and our wealth management group offers a "green" investment portfolio for investors. City National Bank has many other "green" initiatives that make good sense for us and our clients.