Goldman Sachs, the investment banking company known for its extensive campaign finance and lobbying efforts, pledged Monday to invest $750 billion within the next decade to combat the climate crisis in an update to the company’s environmental policy framework.
The company pledged in a press release to help its clients accelerate climate transition and said it would invest in five key areas of sustainable development, including clean energy, sustainable transport, food and agriculture, waste and materials, and ecosystem services.
“Over the next 10 years, Goldman Sachs will target $750 billion of financing, investing and advisory activity to nine areas that focus on climate transition and inclusive growth,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon wrote in a Financial Times editorial. “There is not only an urgent need to act but also a powerful business and investing case to do so.”
#PODCAST: What’s in Goldman Sachs' $750 billion sustainable finance target? John Goldstein (@ImpactInvestor), head of the firm’s Sustainable Finance Group, explains: https://t.co/WdFB9BBPYi #GSsustainability pic.twitter.com/LVBEPSDNpI
— Goldman Sachs (@GoldmanSachs) December 16, 2019
Solomon noted, however, that the company will not divest entirely from the fossil fuel industry and will continue to support its clients in transactions it deems “important to economic activity.”
Goldman Sachs also pledged to advance “inclusive growth” by investing in communities through digitized healthcare, affordable education and financial inclusion for “underserved populations.”
The company committed to decline financing to new thermal coal plants, coal-fired projects, and arctic drilling efforts. In a joint statement, the Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club said Goldman Sachs’s new fossil finance policy is the strongest among the six biggest banks in the U.S. and the only one to put restrictions on oil and gas financing. The statement notes, however, that Goldman Sachs is still lagging among some of its global peers including Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas of France and UniCredit of Italy.
