Recently in Operations Category

A while back we told you about the photovoltaic solar systems that we installed on 10 of our stores in Denver. Well, I am happy to announce that we have recently completed installations of systems on 3 stores in and around Los Angeles.

The lessons we learned from that initial pilot in Colorado greatly informed the project team as we developed the business case, identified ideal locations, and selected our installers. We also conducted a fair amount of due diligence on the stores prior to the installations to ensure we had the proper infrastructure.

The three stores are Adams & Broadway in Los Angeles, our Van Nuys store, and Sepulveda & Victory, also in Van Nuys.

Here are some of the benefits of these systems:

* 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) = the amount of electricity required to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours

** Figures based on EPA GHG equivalencies calculator

*** Equivalent of planting or preserving ~9 acres of pine or fir forest

I am also really proud of this project because it aligns with our renewed environmental commitment, specifically in our objective to increase our building energy efficiency by 40% in time for the year 2020.

Why does Wells Fargo invest in solar? First, it just makes economic sense in our energy expense savings. Additionally:

• The state of California set a goal of meeting 33% of the state's energy needs with renewable energy sources by 2020. (California Energy Commission) And states all across the nation are setting similar goals and urging building owners to help increase the mix of on-site renewable energy sources.
• Wells Fargo has about 10 lines of business that are committed to providing financial services to support the renewable energy sector (Environmental Finance, Equipment Finance, Environmental Affairs, CleanTech Commercial Bank, Sustainable Public Infrastructure Group, Insurance, Community Lending and Investing etc.).
• Renewable energy investment is critical to meet the energy demands of our growing population, deliver economic development by supporting green jobs, and help clean our environmental by investing in less harmful energy sources.

Are you considering solar for your home? Check out this brief introduction as well as the DOE's DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiencies) to find incentives and rebates that might be available to you!

Environmental Forum readers, the latest version of our Vision & Values is now available! It's been updated, but remains fundamentally the same—it's about helping our customers succeed financially, and expectations for how we are to act as a company.

What's important about this document (PDF) is how meaningful and real it is to us—it accurately captures our spirit and guides what we do. Codifying issues and establishing policies are important actions, but there's no substitute for a strong company culture to make them a reality. Our Vision & Values serves as a compass helping us make the right decisions: Ones that are good for our environment, good for our communities and, most importantly, good for our customers.

If you're curious about Wells Fargo as a company, I encourage you to read it and let us know what you think. And, if you're considering a career at Wells Fargo, please consider it essential reading.

Listening, learning, and engaging are important acts of corporate evolution—a fact that's especially true on the environmental front, where issues are complex, interconnected and countless.

In developing our renewed environmental commitment we paid careful attention to comments received here on the Environmental Forum, as well as feedback solicited directly from our customers, senior leaders and team members. We also worked with Ceres to seek contributions from its team and its network of investors, environmental organizations, and thought leaders. All these opinions were necessary—after all, we wanted to be sure that our commitment was right for our customers, meaningful and forward-looking.

As promised earlier this year, this post highlights all the input we received while developing our commitment. The following table, developed largely with the help of Ceres, summarizes our dialog for you to review. We hope it's an indication to you that your input is important to us and that we're listening.

We hope you continue to share your thoughts, questions, and constructive criticism with us. As always, please let us know what you're thinking about the intersection of environment and finance in the comment section. Thank you!

One of the things I love best about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is the tremendous amount of innovation around social change and technology that happens here. It is easy to stay motivated to change the world when you have companies like Facebook, eBay, and Salesforce as your neighbors.

And while I no longer work in Silicon Valley, I still try to stay inspired by the great work happening in and around San Francisco. Wells Fargo helps bank many of these leading companies, and recently our CEO John Stumpf contributed to Game Changers (PDF), a publication produced by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SLVG).

SVLG was founded in 1978 by David Packard of Hewlett-Packard fame. The group represents more than 375 local companies and addresses a range of issues—from education, energy and housing to health care, transportation, and the environment—that affect the economic and community health of the Bay Area. SVLG estimates that their membership provides one of every three private sector jobs in Silicon Valley and contributes more than $3 trillion to the worldwide economy. So when their leadership speaks, many of us listen.

But what I loved about Game Changers, and why we wanted to share it with all of our Environmental Forum readers, is the thoughtful approach and hopeful perspective that Wells Fargo and so many of our regional peers offer around economic recovery, innovation, and the environment.

Of course, I want to recommend John Stumpf's great article on increasing small business investment, fixing the housing marketing, and providing for a more sustainable environment, aptly title "The Next Golden Gate Bridge." But I would be remiss to not mention the many other interesting perspectives offered, like John Doerr's (Partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers) analysis of SoLoMo (another acronym to catch your attention) or San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's approach to transforming a blighted part of our city into a new technology hub, and the home of Twitter and other start-ups.

Game Changers is a quick read and definitely worth the time. Take a look at the whole thing or just an article or two, then tell us how you think these ideas can work in YOUR community!

At Wells Fargo, we hope to inspire a culture of sustainability for our communities—in our operations and through our everyday business decisions. One of the ways we help to engage team members at all levels is through our Green Teams, and recently, our St. Louis team created a unique recognition program that helps "catch" people in the act of being "green."

Here's how it works: Green Team members serve as spotters for office "green" actions of any kind—from using reusable mugs and sorting recycling correctly to biking to work or opting not to print. The "eco" team member is thanked for their work on the spot, as well as with a follow-up eCard, one of our corporate recognition tools. Every month, all the people who receive an eco eCard are entered in a drawing for a chance to win a gift card prize, and the winners are announced via the Wells Fargo Advisors Intranet.

Launched just last month, the program has already received more than 100 submissions in the first month alone! The immediate recognition and follow-up prizes are helping to make eco actions fun and engaging for everyone at the St. Louis campus. And the Green Team is able to collect great data on how people are embracing sustainability at work.

While many of us don't need additional incentives to do the right thing for the environment, it's always nice to be recognized by others. Sometimes the promise of a potential prize can help convince even the most skeptical employees to take part.

Does your company recognize its employees for your environmentalism? If so, how?

...if you give it away! At least that's the message according to Michael Norton, a social change researcher at Harvard, based on a recent TEDxCambridge presentation.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about philanthropy because September marks Wells Fargo's annual Community Support Campaign. Every year, our team members from across the company donate time and money to the community organizations that matter the most to them.

What I particularly like about Professor Norton's call to action is his recommendation to help DonorsChoose, an innovative nonprofit that helps schools in need find resources through individual donations. Our Wells Fargo Green Team uses DonorsChoose as part of our end-of-year recognition. Instead of buying our teams "stuff" to thank them for their work throughout the year, we provide money to donate to a local school.

Our team members actually prove Professor Norton's research by sharing their inspiring stories with each other and exchanging messages with the students and teachers they've supported. In fact, even as I'm writing this post, I smile each time I look at my office collection of "Thank you" notes from students who received a DonorsChoose donation. When I see the joy in these hand-made notes, from kids I've never met, I have to admit it makes me happy, too!

But regardless of how you opt to spend your money, I think you'll find this research both informative and inspiring. Just think what good we could all bring to the world if we "bought" a little more happiness through giving.

Wells Fargo Environmental Forum readers, we're proud to report that we've teamed up with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to help colleges and universities operate in a more sustainable and energy-efficient way—and realize the benefits associated with doing so!

Specifically, we underwrote the cost of four specially trained fellows from EDF Climate Corps. The fellows will help places like UNCF Building Green Grantees, College of Menominee Nation, Los Angeles Community College District, Lane College, and Southern University and A&M College identify and assess cost-effective opportunities to save energy and reduce emissions.

Institutions were selected by representatives from EDF, UNCF and Wells Fargo based on capacity to support fellows, need and location.

Our positive experience with EDF Climate Corps, along with our desire to support a transition to a "greener" economy per our renewed environmental commitment, have led to our support of this program. In 2010, EDF Climate Corps fellow Shinu Thomas helped identify savings of $2.8 million and more than 17,000 metric tons of carbon!

Moreover, EDF Climate Corps has a strong track record of delivering results. Since 2008, EDF Climate Corps fellows have identified energy-saving opportunities that could cut enough energy usage to power nearly 100,000 homes a year, avoid the annual carbon emissions of 200,000 cars, and save more than $1 billion in net operating costs over the project lifetimes. As more fellows are supported and deployed into the field, these numbers are sure to increase.

The effort's currently underway, and details will be made available via this blog later this summer and fall. So please be sure to check back for more information. In the meantime, please let us know what you think by providing your feedback in comments!

¹ Source: Based on forecasted energy savings and factors from the EPA Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID)
² Source: Environmental Defense Fund

Environmental Forum readers: In case you didn't see the news from our ATM group earlier this week, we wanted to share it with you here.

In just a little over two years after introducing an e-receipt option at our ATMs, customers have used the service more than 100 million times! With this show of support from our customers, we've expanded our e-receipt capabilities making e-receipts an option in our stores nationwide.

From an environmental perspective, certainly reducing waste and minimizing potential litter related to receipts is important, but what's also important is the bigger opportunity this represents. With nearly half of our customers choosing e-receipts or no receipt at all, we're at the pivotal point where digital can soon be considered the norm and paper the exception. For as long as I can remember, paper has always been the default. Now that we're closing in on the 50/50 mark—with nearly half our customers choosing digital and half choosing paper—we have the opportunity to redefine the norm.

For example, paper statements, loan documents, disclosures, and brokerage materials can all be delivered digitally automatically. Customers who want paper can select it if they choose, but otherwise they would receive information digitally. And why not? Making the switch has the potential of saving vast amounts of paper in addition to all the environmental and economic costs that go along with manufacturing, printing, warehousing, distributing and then recycling it.

We're at a pivotal point and I'm excited about the opportunities ahead! You can help us gain momentum and help us tip the scales by choosing digital options whenever you can.

Environmental Forum readers, hopefully you're already familiar with Joanne Lasnier, who helps lead our San Francisco Green Team and is a regular guest blogger on issues ranging from wetland conservation to organics and plastics.

Inspired by our Green Teams in Vancouver, Wash., and Charlotte, N.C., who are tackling energy issues around their offices and homes, Joanne has produced a different spin on energy efficiency, and invited colleagues throughout her Wholesale Services Group to take one (or three) simple daily steps to help reduce our energy use and spending at Wells Fargo.

Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Energy STAR program, Joanne calculated the economic and environmental savings for three simple, everyday actions that all of us could take:

1. Unplug our chargers when they are not in use. Did you know that gadget chargers for everything from cell phones to iPods use energy even when they are not actively charging your device? Using Energy STAR data, chargers draw about 4kWh/year or about $.52 a year for our team members in San Francisco who are pulling energy based on PG&E rates. That doesn't really sound like much, but consider if EVERYONE (almost 35,000 people) in just Joanne's Wholesale Banking Group took this simple action. Then, we'd see a savings of over 136,656 kWh or about $17,000 annually.
2. Turn off your monitor at night. Again using Energy Star data, we estimate that the simple act of powering down your computer monitor at night would save Wells Fargo up to 232 pounds of carbon and around $18 per team member per year. Applied to just one group within our large bank, this savings could add up to a savings of almost 8,000,000 pounds of carbon or over $600,000. That's significant.
3. Switching off your computer at night. As a third and final recommendation, Joanne suggested that team members (gasp!) fully power down their computer at night to help us save an estimated $40 and up to 522 pounds of carbon per team member per year. This action would allow our Wholesale team to save an estimated $1.3 million and over 17,000,000 pounds of carbon a year.

Although we received a few complaints about lost productivity while waiting for a computer to start-up, most team members agreed that this is something they often forget, but will now remember to do daily, given the substantial savings we saw. We also politely suggested they use their new routine to catch up on voicemail or get coffee in the breakroom with colleagues.

Did you know? New Jersey, a.k.a. the "Garden State," has been a leader in land preservation for a century, and the Garden State Preservation Trust (GSPT) has helped this effort reach unprecedented levels. Today, one third of the state's dry land mass is permanently preserved as open space. That's an acreage exceeding the size of Grand Canyon National Park.

Most recently, our Wells Fargo Sustainable Public Infrastructure group proudly supported the state's land preservation effort. Here's how.

In April, they assisted our Northeast Region Public Finance group in senior managing GSPT's $281,140,000 Open Space and Farmland Preservation Refunding Bonds, 2012 Series A.

GSPT is an independent authority in New Jersey that was established by voter referendum in 1998 to fund the acquisition and development of lands for recreation and conservation purposes, the preservation of farmland for agricultural or horticultural use and production, and historic preservation projects throughout the state, as administered by the Department of Environmental Protection. New Jersey citizens approved a state constitutional amendment dedicating $98 million of sales tax and use tax revenues per year for 30 years to finance the preservation projects using municipal bonds.

The 2012 Series A Bonds were issued for the specific purpose of refinancing the GSPT's outstanding Series 2003A and 2005A Bonds. Wells Fargo's Sustainable Public Infrastructure Group designed a cash flow structure to maximize present value savings for the GSPT while taking advantage of the dedicated annual tax revenue stream in years to come.

With exceptionally strong historical and estimated future debt service coverage, the Bonds received Aa3/AAA/AA- credit ratings. And with the benefit of Wells Fargo's targeted marketing efforts, the Bonds attracted a strong retail investor audience that allowed our underwriting desk to lower yields and achieve spreads that were significantly tighter than those on comparable transactions.

In addition to supporting land preservation, the transaction also reduced GSPT's debt-service payments by $23 million in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, with an additional savings of $3.8 million through fiscal year 2024.

We and our Sustainable Public Infrastructure group proudly support GSPT and other states and public authorities in reaching their environmental protection and sustainability goals. Doing so is one example of how voters, local governments, and private businesses can work together to drive positive change.

What do you think of these land preservation efforts? As always, we welcome your thoughts and questions. Let us know!