Corporate Citizenship

Tacking climate change requires coordinated action by government, business and the public. We support the regulation of carbon emissions. One important element is creating a low-carbon economy and seeking opportunities to finance low-carbon investments.

Our role in mitigating climate change starts with reductions in direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our own operations. We also support initiatives and standards that promote a lower-carbon economy.

We collaborate with NGOs and research organizations such as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Ceres, Renewable Energy and International Law (REIL) policy network and the Clinton Climate Initiative.

We support our clients in their efforts to mitigate. For example:

• We provide financing and investments that help our clients to develop projects, technologies and services to reduce emissions.
• We develop innovative clean energy financing structures to help clients access new sources of capital.
• We conduct research on climate change and convey the findings to our clients.

$50 Billion Climate Change Initiative

We are confident that we will achieve our goal, announced in 2007, to direct $50 billion over 10 years to activities that mitigate climate change. These activities include internal projects, such as retrofitting existing or constructing new Citi facilities, and business initiatives, such as financing alternative energy, investing in clean technology and researching carbon reduction strategies on behalf of our clients. We have directed $30 billion so far.

Examples of funded projects:

Innovative financing boosts renewables

While U.S. government tax breaks for renewables help drive the market, innovative financing arrangements based on those incentives provide an additional and essential boost.

In late 2010, Citigroup completed the funding of the largest wind-energy project in the world, tailoring a guarantee provided by the U.S. Department of Energy to make the investment more attractive to a wider variety of investors.

Citi acted as joint lead book-runner and joint lead arranger on the $1.4 billion package, which financed the Shepherds Flat Wind Project in Oregon, U.S. When completed in 2012, the project is expected to produce enough renewable energy to power more than 200,000 California households, avoiding over 1 million tons of carbon dioxide, and creating hundreds of jobs in the community.

Bringing solar power to Californian campuses

In 2010, Citi helped finance five photovoltaic systems across four campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), reducing the cost of electricity by up to 15%.

The financing was made possible by an innovative leasing structure using federal tax incentives designed to support the building of solar power systems. Continued savings will enable the LACCD to buy more solar systems in the future.