Global Policy Forum

Activists and students across the country today participated in a national "Day of Action" against Citigroup (C) to protest the severe environmental destruction caused by the financial giant's unethical lending practices. Citigroup (Citi) quietly uses its customers' money to fund the most environmentally destructive logging, mining and fossil fuel projects in the world, laying waste endangered forests and driving the global warming crisis. Citi's complete lack of environmental standards is only one of a growing list of the financial giant's corrupt business practices. Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and students with Free The Planet and clean energy group PowerShift! organized the "Day of Action."

The national Day of Action consisted of approximately 40 actions throughout the U.S. ranging from demonstrations outside local Citibank branches to letter-writing campaigns and call-ins to Citi executives. Students at New York University held a public demonstration at Citigroup's headquarters and asked the university's president to end Citi's preferred lender status on campus until Citi cleans up its environmental practices.

"Students all over the country are banding together to tell Citi, ‘Not with my Money,'" said student organizer Devin Carberry. "Students are Citi's bread and butter, but we want Citi credit cards off our campuses and Citi loans out of our financial aid offices."

The Day of Action is the latest move in RAN's hard-hitting campaign against Citi's refusal to end its destructive lending practices. RAN is calling on Citi to meet the financial industry's best environmental and social practices. The financial industry's leading players in Europe have begun to put policies in place that address the environmental and social impacts of their investments. For example, top Dutch Bank, ABN AMRO, has policies prohibiting the financing of extractive industries that clear or degrade primary forests or operate on indigenous land.

In striking contrast, Citi CEO Sandy Weill, refuses to establish meaningful environmental and social lending policies, despite overwhelming public support for wilderness preservation. According to Bloomberg analytics, Citi ranks as the top financier of destructive logging, mining and fossil fuel projects around the world. Citi's controversial projects span the globe, wiping out endangered forests and forcing communities into poverty and homelessness. Citi has recently come under fire for financing the highly controversial Camisea gas project that threatens the Peruvian Amazon. According to the Smithsonian Institute, the Camisea project will affect one of the world's most biologically diverse regions. Other Citi projects include the destruction of California's Headwaters Forests and the Mimbo Nambillo Cloudforest in Ecuador, the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, funding for palm oil plantations in critical orangutan habitat in Indonesia, and a pipeline through the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela.

"Citigroup is an unethical company that cannot be trusted with your money," said Ilyse Hogue, global finance campaigner, Rainforest Action Network. "It uses your money to fund deforestation, drought, hurricanes and starvation. That's too high a price to pay so that Citi can live richly."

RAN Global Finance Campaign is working to transform the funding practices of the corporate financial system. RAN and a broad coalition of groups and individuals are calling on Citi to lead the corporate financial sector in ending destructive investments in fossil fuel and deforestation and prioritize investments in clean, renewable energy. The campaign has included hundreds of demonstrations, a boycott of Citibank credit cards and non-violent direct actions.

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