FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Ilyse Hogue
Rainforest Action Network
415-398-4404 x351 or cell: 415-652-9529
ihogue@ran.org

Sara Brown Riggs
Rainforest Action Network
415-398-4404 x316 or cell: 415-572-8466
sbriggs@ran.org

THIS IS CITIGROUP… IN DENIAL!

Citigroup’s New Ad Campaign Not Showing The Real Picture

San Francisco – April 11, 2002 –Citigroup’s (C) new ad campaign, launched today, shows a completely different picture of the kind of business that is really going on under the red umbrella. The new ad campaign is so out of touch with reality that Rainforest Action Network is concerned that critical levels of psychological denial have taken hold of the executive suite. Citigroup’s new campaign completely ignores customers and investors understandable concern about the environmental and social destruction bankrolled by Citigroup’s lending practices. RAN is so concerned about the delusional images displayed in Citigroup’s ad campaign that it has intervened with its own ad campaign showing the true destruction caused by Citigroup’s lending practices. RAN’s ad campaign can be viewed at www.thisiscitigroup.org.

The cognitive dissonance between Citigroup’s (Citi) ad campaign and the company’s investment in controversial fossil fuel projects, global warming and the destruction of the world’s old growth forests is known technically as "denial." RAN’s ad campaign draws a sharp distinction between Citi and other banks that are not developmentally stunted and have adjusted to modern times. Citi has fallen behind companies and competitors in better touch with modern values that have taken steps to end the destruction of the world’s endangered forests and address global warming. Top European Bank, ABN/AMRO, has a policy prohibiting the funding of projects that clear or degrade old growth forests. More than 400 companies have pledged not to buy or sell products made from old growth wood. Through lending, underwriting, mutual funds and funding government politics, Citi continues to profits off projects that destroy fragile ecosystems, accelerate global warming and displace communities.

"The new ad campaign almost seems like a cry for help," said Ilyse Hogue, global finance campaigner with Rainforest Action Network. "It’s such a violation of truth in advertising that we felt we had no choice but to intervene."

RAN’s ad campaign uses actual photos to document the true destructive social and environmental consequences of specific Citi-funded projects including the construction of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline in Africa and a gas pipeline in Camisea Peru. It also features images of Citi’s destruction of the world’s remaining endangered forests through numerous logging projects, the destruction of the endangered species’ habitat, and the callous displacement of indigenous communities. RAN’s campaign consists of seven different print ads with the tagline This is Citigroup .

"It’s not a pretty picture," explains Chris Hatch, Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network. "But Citi can’t continue to turn a blind eye to the devastation it's causing around the world. Sometimes, pictures speak louder than words."

Citi is the top funder of new oil, gas and mining projects around the world. According to Bloomberg analytics, Citi’s loans and corporate bond underwriting secured its position as the number one financier of both the coal industry and the fossil fuel industry in the year 2001. Citi’s controversial projects include the OCP Pipeline in Ecuador, funding for palm oil plantations in critical orangutan habitat in Indonesia, the Camisea Gas Project in Peru, and a pipeline through the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela.

Citi is the target of an ongoing international intervention to introduce sanity into the funding practices of the corporate financial system. The campaign has included hundreds of demonstrations, a boycott of Citibank credit cards and non-violent protests. As part of the campaign, Rainforest Action Network and a broad coalition of groups and individuals is calling on Citi to at least match the best practices within the corporate financial sector in ending insane investments in fossil fuels and deforestation.

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