Why Wells Fargo is banking on sustainability

Today, Wells Fargo宣布了重大的环境承诺consisting of three 2020 goals: $30 billion in loans and investments in clean technologies, energy-efficient buildings, environmental innovation; $100 million in community grants and increased volunteerism for grassroots environmental initiatives; and energy-efficiency, waste-diversion, green building, and greenhouse gas targets.

一家主要银行做出这样的承诺需要什么？为什么要这样做？为了寻找答案，我最近与富国银行高级执行副总裁兼首席行政官Patricia Callahan和银行环境事务总监Mary Wenzel进行了交谈。以下是该对话的编辑版本。

Joel Makower:这一宣布有趣的一件事是，您的世界上还有很多其他事情：Wachovia整合，止赎，占领。可持续性如何适应？竞彩足球app怎么下载

Patricia Callahan:The Wachovia merger is actually finished, and I would say that having the merger done has given us a little more brain space to focus in this area. I’m not sure we could have gotten through the work 12-18 months ago because everybody was so focused on the merger. We continue to focus on foreclosure problems and working in our communities to get things back on track as much as we can influence that.

但是我们必须展望未来。而且我们认为，环境金融方面的商机以及减少我们商业环境中浪费的机会，都将帮助我们将来作为公司的状况更好。我们的团队成员很感兴趣，并想要这个。因此，我们认为这一切都很好。我们并没有难以从管理中获得所需的关注来实现这一目标。

麦克沃：威尔斯可持续性的商机是什么？竞彩足球app怎么下载

卡拉汉：环境适当的发展有很大的机会。我们有一个在替代能源方面非常活跃的环境金融集团。我们做了很多LEED建筑开发。如果您问我们的商业房地产人，他们会告诉您，今天任何建造新建筑物的人都试图达到LEED标准，这仅在几年前就不是真的。因此，我们认为在耕作和其他行业的耕作方式上建立，替代权力的机会。

我们还坚信，如果我们与不关注公司所产生的环境影响的客户合作，它会给他们带来更大的风险。这与我们希望与正在正确方式做事的公司开展业务，以对客户的运营进行环境尽职调查。我现在谈论的是业务客户，而不是消费者。

麦克沃：当您这样做时，消费者会在乎吗？

卡拉汉：当我们向消费者出去时，我们问他们他们关心的事情时，他们告诉我们他们在乎。现在，我不知道，无论人们是否离开一个对环境敏感的人，还是改变银行，因为我们比别人做得更好，我不知道。但是他们说他们在乎。

Mary Wenzel:我们将这一承诺付诸实践，向客户的在线论坛，问他们与他们的共鸣是什么。这是一个有趣的回应。整个承诺引起了极大的共鸣。超过80％的客户表示对他们有一个环境承诺对他们来说很重要。承诺的运营方面经过了很好的测试，因为他们觉得自己要在关心环境的立场上保持可信，因此您必须拥有自己的房子。因此，不仅有所有正确的业务理由专注于我们的运营，而且我们的客户也希望看到我们专注于这些领域。而且我们知道我们的团队成员对我们环境承诺的这一方面充满热情。

麦克沃：告诉我达到这一承诺需要什么。怎么开始的？谈论这个过程。

温泽尔：Weannounced our first public commitment在2005年7月，我想说这只是该旅程的自然发展。我们见面了超过the goals we laid out in that first commitment, so it was time to think about what we wanted to publicly communicate around our environmental values as a company a second time in a comprehensive way.

We began this journey about a year ago and engaged an external stakeholder group to help us think about what appropriate environmental leadership and commitments would look like for us as a company. We engaged customers around what they thought would be important for us to commit to, and we engaged a number of internal partners and leaders about their views on environment leadership for us as a company.

From that process we developed the three focus areas where we would have the opportunity to demonstrate material leadership. We then went back to the relevant lines of business that would have to own those commitments, and we spent a long time working with them, and the leadership of those different lines of businesses and organizations, to make sure that this commitment was really owned enterprise-wide.

这不是环境事务，只是坐在房间挑选数字中。这确实是企业拥有的承诺。因此，富国银行（Wells Fargo）内部的多个业务和组织在去年与我们合作，以发展承诺中的目标和语言。

麦克沃：您能给我一个您必须从中获得的业务的例子吗？

温泽尔：I think the buy-in was there, but we certainly had to agree on the numbers within the commitment. A good example of that is the environmental finance goal. That goal is going to be owned by multiple groups within our lending organization. So, our community lending and investment team contributed to that goal, our commercial real estate team contributed to that goal, our environmental finance team that does our renewable tax-equity investments contributed to that goal, our cleantech commercial banking office contributed to that goal, our sustainable public infrastructure group contributed to that goal.

因此，有多个业务集团来到餐桌上说：“如果我对我们可以支持的环境业务的数量雄心勃勃，那就是我认为我们可以做的。”这些目标被卷起，并围绕公司的不同领导才能达成协议。

麦克沃：在内部和外部利益相关者的过程中，您认为没有任何惊喜，您认为会过得不错的事情，或者您的各种利益相关者提出的事情是您没想到的？

温泽尔：我认为没有巨大的惊喜。那里有很多不同的观点，许多不同的群体认为最重要的领域。我们只需要平衡并承认那里有很多观点。

There were a lot of folks that wanted us to have one signature statement, and we didn’t feel like we could do just one thing. We felt like it was more important to show that this was a systemic integrated approach to thinking about sustainability and that we weren't trying to hang our hat on one issue or initiative. We wanted to show that this was about our way of doing business and about our way of working with customers and communities.

麦克沃：What’s enabling you to commit to $30 billion in environmental finance? Is it the greater availability of projects and companies that you think would qualify?

卡拉汉：Some of it is that. Some of it is increased expertise on our side, and better understanding across these various sectors of the kinds of business that we can do that is actually important from an environmental point of view, both in the alternative energy and in our community lending. And trying to not just build low-income housing, but build low-income housing that is well insulated, has solar on it, and so forth. And so I think there’s an expertise shift as well as a demand shift.

温泽尔：这项工作大部分是关于支持我们的客户的，我们的客户告诉我们他们想将太阳能放在其设施上。因此，我们不仅在进行税收股权太阳能融资，而且还开发了用于商业太阳能设施的太阳能租赁产品，并且正在为太阳能公司提供资金。

当我们在这些领域拥有专业知识的专业知识和声誉时，该业务即将成为我们。客户开始与我们进行这种对话，想与我们进行融洽关系，因此，这实际上是关于建立良好的关系以及了解和支持我们的客户。

麦克沃：There’s a certain group out there, and I don’t mean just the Occupy types, who would say that all banking should be sustainability-minded — that all loans and financing should consider environmental and community and social impacts, as opposed to having a separate green fund. What do you say to them?

卡拉汉：我们同意我们希望所有客户对环境敏感。现在，我们所有的客户都不直接从事环境业务。因此，如果我们有一个制造某种窗口小部件的客户，那么确保他们遵守法律是我们信贷尽职调查的一部分。无论业务如何，您都必须进行一定数量的尽职调查。

但是，有些企业专门针对环境方面，例如替代发电和如今的建筑构建方式，这就是我们所分割的。这并不意味着我们没有关注其他客户的环境实践。这也不意味着我们不与客户开展业务，因为您所谈论的这组人可能不希望我们这样做。的确，整个社会还不存在，我们与美国许多公司开展业务。整个经济尚未转变为不需要基于碳的燃料的经济。

温泽尔：我们希望支持向我们的经济绿化的过渡。我们要纪念我们现有的客户关系，但我们也希望能够部署更清洁的技术和以环境为中心的企业。我们知道我们现在都处于过渡期，可再生能源仍然是我们在美国整体能源组合的一小部分，因此我们需要尽我们所能支持和加速该过渡。

麦克沃：让我们简要介绍一下社区慈善事业。我的理解方式，在社区再投资法[a federal law to encourage banks to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods], banks don’t get extra credit for making green investments — for example, if you were to finance LEED multifamily housing. Given your environmental commitment, is this an issue for Wells Fargo? Is this something that you would like to see changed?

温泽尔：我们很想看到这种变化。实际上，我们已经与监管机构进行了对我们在该领域所做的所有出色工作的对话，以便他们可以理解和认识其价值。但是，即使没有额外的信誉，这些仍然是在我们社区中进行的正确投资。如果我们能为绿色的低收入或中等收入住房项目提供资金，那对社区有很大的好处。因此，即使我们没有获得额外的信誉，我们认为这些是我们要专注的正确的事情。

麦克沃：您会偏爱绿色的社区项目吗？

温泽尔：在某些情况下，我们是。我们有一个住房基金会，我们支持社区人类项目的栖息地，我们将为他们提供更多的资金，以使其绿色。我们正在努力激励绿色社区发展和社区项目。我们正在与这些项目的开发人员合作，以了解他们如何将环境因素整合到项目中。

卡拉汉：我只想澄清一下，项目需要融资以及社区需要的住房，这并不是唯一的考虑。因此，如果有一个低收入社区非常迫切需要住房，并且没有开发人员要做绿色，那么我们将不仅要考虑不仅仅是绿色方面。

麦克沃：因此，现在是2020年地球日。您刚刚完成了这项为期8年的承诺。由于您在2012年做出的承诺，您想讲述的故事是什么？

卡拉汉：I want us to be in a situation where we are, from a selfish corporate point of view, recognized for the good work that we’re doing. But even more, I’d like to see us having not only met, but exceeded all of these goals and be a company that’s out there doing the right things and having customers know it, and seek us out when they have these opportunities.

从内部的角度来看，当然，我们希望在能源使用，用水，废物转移以及这些事物方面成为一流的。我们希望和任何人一样好。

温泽尔：My vision is that this is that we build deep and lasting relationships with our customers, our communities, our team members, our stakeholders, around environmental priorities and needs. And that it is not thought of as something other than the way we do business. That it is just part of everything that we do.

图像果岭上的美元钞票经过Sergej Khakimullin通过快门;Greenbiz的光卷。