FW: Goldman Sachs Commits to $40 Billion in Green Economy Investments

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05/24/2012 02:36 PM      ShareThis
Goldman Sachs Commits to $40 Billion in Green Economy Investments

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At its annual meeting this week, Goldman Sachs will announce its intention
to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2020 and invest $4 billion a year for
the next 10 years in green economy projects, reports Reuters.

The company plans to arrange financing and invest in the full range of green
projects, calling it one of the greatest opportunities for profits:
renewable energy, energy efficiency and storage, lighting, transmission,
green materials and transportation.

A majority of those funds won't be it's own, most will come from clients,
and Goldman Sachs will set up the deals.

Last year, they co-invested $500 million and helped finance $4.8 billion in
clean energy companies global, they say. They are underwriters for
SolarCity's upcoming IPO. 

Last year, when the Dept of Energy awarded its final loan guarantees for
renewable energy projects, the $1.46 billion in  partially guaranteed loans
for First Solar's Desert Sunlight Project, were to be funded by a group of
investors led by  Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

Athough $4 billion a year is a lot of money, it's about the same
as from 2005-2011, when they arranged financing for $24 billion worth of
projects and invested $4 billion of it.

"Obviously we recognize this is not the easiest of times in the clean energy
market but nevertheless the underlying thesis as to why cleaner and more
sustainable forms of energy need to scale up still holds true," Kyung-Ah
Park, head of environmental markets at Goldman, told Reuters.

He's referring to the difficulties the renewable energy industry is
experiencing because of the combined pull-back in government support and the
surge in natural gas supplies.

At the same time, Goldman got an "F" in the latest edition of "Dirty Money,"
which rates the largest US banks on financing coal generation (mountaintop
removal coal mining and coal-fired power plants. 

The company is a member of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which provides a
global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage, and
share climate change and water information.

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