Costco Hot Dogs Rebel Against Citi’s Fossil Fuel Funding

The Costco Hot Dog Rebellion disrupted 1000+ Citi employees from getting into work, calling on Citi to stop funding fossil fuels.

As part of the Summer of Heat on Wall Street and our Costco campaign to pressure Citi to stop funding fossil fuels, Costco members, Third Actors, youth, and other climate activists dressed in hot dog costumes and red aprons – representing Costco’s iconic $1.50 hot dogs and samples staff – blocked 1000+ Citi employees from getting into work for well over an hour.

We blockaded all 12 doors, sang chants like “Hot Dogs Hate the Dirty Cash,” and spoke to hundreds of employees that were stuck, sweating in the plaza of Citibank’s headquarters. Citi’s employees were feeling the heat, literally. In addition to the action at Citi HQ, we called the direct phone lines of Citi executives who are in charge of Costco’s credit card partnership, commented on their linkedin posts, and flooded their email inboxes (and you can still take those online actions too!). 

The Summer of Heat on Wall Street is a sustained campaign all summer long to escalate pressure on Wall Street financiers that are bankrolling climate extremes like this summer’s deadly heat waves, floods, and hurricanes, and this action was the largest disruption of Citi’s operations at HQ we’ve pulled off yet.

Why the hot dogs and red aprons? To represent an iconic retailer, Costco.

Why Costco? Because Costco has a credit card partnership with dirty Citibank. And because Costco is the third largest retailer in the US, where 1 out of 3 Americans shop, and has a lot of sway as a large client of Citi’s. Citibank is the #1 funder of fossil fuel expansion and the #1 funder of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the world. The fossil fuel industry is polluting and destroying our communities and the places that we love. If Costco considers itself an “ethical” company, it should not do business with unethical ones like Citibank which is financing an industry that is literally killing us and our planet. 

Why show up at Citi HQ? We showed up at Citibank’s headquarters dressed as Costco hot dogs to show Citi that thousands of Costco members are demanding that Costco use its leverage as a large credit card partner of Citibank and push Citibank to stop funding fossil fuel expansion, starting with an end to new or future liquified natural gas (LNG) projects. And if Citi doesn’t stop funding fossil fuels, Costco should drop Citi as a credit card partner all together. We want Citi to do that because it may be at risk of losing one of its largest clients due to Citi’s fossil fuel financing. 

We’ve been turning up the heat on Citibank all summer long. Just this week, in addition to the Costco Hot Dog Rebellion, there were three other actions in NYC: on Monday July 8th, Third Act Elders held a memorial for all we have already lost to climate change with a bag-pipe procession, a die-in, and 46 arrests, including renowned climate activist and Third Act founder Bill Mckibben. On Tuesday July 9th, the Costco Hot Dog Rebellion blocked 1000+ employees from getting into work for over an hour. And then on Wednesday, July 10th, kids, parents, and grandparents gathered for a storytime and sing-along about the climate crisis. On Thursday, July 11th, lamenters representing heat waves, biodiversity loss, and other climate-related disasters staggered themselves in Citi’s plaza as employees walked into work. And there were more protests across the country.

Our pressure is working. Bloomberg recently reported that our campaign “is beginning to wear on Citibank employees and executives alike”; the New York Times just released a piece about our campaign, pointing out that “Citi’s investment portfolio is at odds with global goals to limit global temperature increases” ― and just last week, thanks to powerful Indigenous leadership, Citi came out with some updates to its climate policies, excluding 18% of its oil and gas financing in the Amazon. 

While this is an important step, Citi’s new policy not only leaves out 82% of Citi’s financing in the Amazon, but also the rest of its fossil fuel expansion financing in the rest of the world. So, we are going to continue to turn up the heat on Citibank – and on Costco – all summer long. 

You can help by signing the “Costco: Clean Up Your Citi Credit Card” petition, and join the Summer of Heat on Wall Street campaign. 

Video: Breanna Perez / @perezbrenna
Images: Luis Yanez / @luigiwmorris

Sarah Lasoff, Stop the Money Pipeline

Sarah Lasoff has been an organizer in the progressive movement for the past 10 years: she started organizing for Climate Justice in high school, organized in the Labor Justice movement in college, and for the past three years has worked as a Banks Campaigner for Stop the Money Pipeline (STMP). STMP is a key partner collaborating with Third Act on our shared goals to get big, dirty banks to stop funding climate destruction.