FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Fri. Aug. 13th

Video of Action: 

Expose Greenwashing Day of Action-Chicago – YouTube

Greenwashing Day of Action – Chicago March – YouTube

Activists Stage Street Theatre Inside and Outside of Chase Tower to Protest Greenwashing as Climate Change Worsens

Chicago, IL– Activists performed a skit inside Chase Tower and then led a protest outside in Chicago Friday, calling out Chase Bank, CEO Jamie Dimon and Chicago based Board members James Crown and Mellody Hobson for allowing Enbridge, an oil pipeline company, to greenwash by granting them “sustainability bonds.” Protestors called out the hypocrisy by bringing a person dressed as elephant into Chase Tower and performing a skit to demonstrate that they were giving Enbridge money to put solar panels on their office buildings to make it seem like they were taking action on climate change while at the same time financing a controversial and much protested Line 3 pipeline. 

Wall Street banks, including Chase, lent 1.5 Billion dollars to Enbridge in the form of a sustainability loan to put solar panels on it’s buildings and lower interest rates on loans while simultaneously funding Line 3, the carbon equivalent of 50 coal plants. Activists call the process of disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image greenwashing. Chase bank has invested 1.8 billions of dollars in an illegal pipeline, Enbridge’s Line 3, that violates the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe peoples and if built will worsen the climate crisis. 

Activists dressed up as an elephant and bank and oil executives entered Chase Tower and performed a skit. Other people unfurled a banner that read, “Sustainability Bonds for Enbridge?: Greenwashing” that had images of elephants on it. They performed a skit that demonstrated how the sustainability bonds given by banks like Chase feed Enbridge’s line 3 (dressed up as an elephant). The elephant in the room represented line 3, an environmental tragedy they fund and have failed to address. Once the skit was over, activists walked out of the bank while singing, “Defund Line Line, The people and the water will flow free” and meet other activists outside for a rally outside of Chase Tower. 

The protesters were acting in solidarity with Anishinaabe people in so-called Northern Minnesota that are fighting to stop the construction of Line 3 and as part of a larger week of protests called “Defund Line 3: Exposing Greenwashing Day of Action.” The week of action is designed to put pressure on funders for engaging in greenwashing line 3. 

The oIl pipeline is slated to cross 200 bodies of water and threaten manoomin, a wild rice that is an important traditional food source of the Anishinaabe peoples. 

The pipeline will carry tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Superior, Wisconsin and connect to other pipelines that bring tar sands to the BP Whiting Refinery in Whiting, IN.. BP Whiting dumps refuse from tar sands refining into Lake Michigan, Chicago’s source for drinking water. Tar Sands are oil mixed with sand that requires three times as much water and at least 15% more carbon emissions than traditional oil. Line 3 is the greenhouse gas equivalent of 50 new coal plants. 

Over 600 people have been arrested in Minnesota for protesting Line 3 construction by using the direct action tactics of walking onto worksites, locking themselves to equipment, and staging tree sits. They are resorting to these tactics because the government has not observed treaty rights or acted to stop the negative impacts to water, land and our climate. For more information about the movement to stop line 3,visit www.stopline3.org.

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