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Wells Fargo Promotes Five Simple Actions to Protect the Environment Through Banking

The core of Earth Day's 40th anniversary program is the Billion Acts of Green ^TM, designed by EDN to aggregate the millions of environmental service commitments that individuals and organizations around the world make each year. "Individually actions may seem small, when aggregated they're powerful," said Mary Wenzel, Wells Fargo's director of Environmental Affairs. "For our contribution to the Billion Acts of Green ^TM, we're encouraging everyone to reduce or eliminate paper use in banking transactions."

Five simple actions:

1. Reduce paper in your mailbox by choosing to receive financial statements only online. Wells Fargo customers have already saved more than 100,000 trees according to calculations made using the Environmental Defense Fund paper calculator¹.
2. Keep paper savings real by not printing at home and by storing documents in a single, secure, internet-accessible location.
3. Make deposits via ATMs that do not require envelopes. Since 2007, Wells Fargo customers avoided using 97 million paper envelopes by using our Envelope-Free^SM ATMs to make cash and check deposits.
4. Avoid printing ATM receipts; email them to yourself where feasible. Each day for a year, if just 20 people selected to not print an ATM receipt at each of the ATMs nationwide, enough paper could be saved to circle the world at the equator nearly six times.
5. Choose to handle daily finances online or via mobile banking, including transferring money or paying bills. According to the PayItGreen Alliance, of which Wells Fargo is a member, if only 20 percent of American households switched from paper to electronic bills, statements and payments each year, it would save 150 million pounds of paper and help avoid nearly two million tons of greenhouse gases.

"Earth Day Network's website, www.earthday.org, is a site visited by millions each year who are looking for ways to help protect the environment on Earth Day and every day," added Wenzel. "We're proud to support EDN's effort to communicate information simply and effectively so that taking action is easy."

Wells Fargo's investment supported the development of EDN's parent site, http://www.earthday.org/education/parents, which provides parents with ideas and activities to teach their children about the environment and their role in protecting it. Funds also supported the development of EDN's energy efficiency site, http://www.earthday.org/efficiency, which helps people save money and energy at home. Tips cover topics such as tax rebates, smart grid, energy efficient appliances and more.

Join us at Wells Fargo Environmental Forum at blog.wellsfargo.com/environment.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.2 trillion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 10,000 stores and 12,000 ATMs and the internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally.

¹ http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/

Wells Fargo
Stephanie Rico, 415-396-5804
stephanie.rico@wellsfargo.com