On Wednesday July 13th, local environmental and social justice activists hosted a lunch-hour sidewalk “cook-in” at Wells Fargo’s headquarters in San Francisco’s busy financial district. Activists called on the banking giant to "get on the wagon" and stop profiting at the expense of communities and the environment. The protest was timed to coincide with Wells Fargo's 153rd anniversary festivities.
Wells Fargo is one of the largest US banks still operating without meaningful social or environmental safeguards to prevent destructive investments. Despite their surprise July 11 announcement of a so-called "10-point environmental commitment," Wells Fargo continues to be a top financier of environmentally and socially destructive corporations like Burlington Resources, a Houston-based company drilling for oil on indigenous homelands in Ecuador, and BlueLinx, a timber-importer linked to illegal logging and human rights abuses in Indonesia.
Unlike competitors such as Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo refuses to take seriously its role as a bankroller of global warming, and consistently avoids making any specific commitments to curtail oil investments, safeguard endangered ecosystems, or to uphold human rights in areas where it invests money. Moreover, Wells Fargo profits from other types of social injustice such as predatory lending and charging exorbitant fees to low-income immigrants seeking to wire money home to their families overseas.
Photos Of the Demonstration | Rainforest Action Network