WSLA 2015 Winner: Mary Wenzel

Sixty Wells Fargo Green teams, involving 4,000 members, volunteered 71,000 hours in their local communities last year alone.

In her position with the global banking company since 2004, Wenzel and her staff develop environmental strategies and drive organizational change to support the company’s sustainability efforts. Responsibilities include a focus on environmental philanthropy, operational sustainability, environmental and social risk management, and clean technology financing and lending.

This means that she must lead the company to integrate environmental policies and processes into company operations and community development initiatives. Consider the results: $11 million in grants to more than 385 environmental nonprofits in 2014 alone ($40.2 million since 2012). Environmentally sustainable businesses received $37 billion in investments and loans since 2012. The company also financed $3.8 billion in environmental initiatives in low-to moderate-income communities since 2012.

Wenzel notes they keep their own house in order as well. “Since setting new goals in 2012, Wells Fargo has achieved a 24% increase in energy efficiency, 38% increase in water efficiency, and 18% increase in waste diversion (recycling rate),” she writes in a company environmental blog, adding that from 2008 to 2020, the company will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35%.

It’s no small task to engage the broadly distributed company and its 80 businesses. Wenzel’s department keeps those businesses aligned through a Corporate Environmental and Social Risk Management policy, while the Wells Fargo Supplier Code of Conduct provides a holistic framework of environmental stewardship with 30,000 vendors in more than 36 countries.

Employee engagement in green initiatives is part of the company culture. Sixty Wells Fargo Green teams, involving 4,000 members, volunteered 71,000 hours in their local communities last year alone.