US-based investment bank Goldman Sachs has moved to improve its social
and environmental performance by agreeing to report publicly on the
greenhouse gas emissions of power plants that it finances.
The bank has said it will also lobby publicly for a US national policy
to limit the emissions, and that it will ‘take the lead in identifying
investment opportunities in renewable energy’ at plants in which it has
an interest.
The bank, which has large financial stakes in US fossil fuel-fired
power plants, is the country’s latest financial services company –
after Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase – to adopt social
and environmental policies in the face of strong campaigning by the
Rainforest Action Network pressure group, which has targeted the sector
over the past year. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the fourth largest
US bank, is the next big name on the activist group’s hit list, but has
so far resisted taking significant action.
Citigroup last month said it
would make the biggest cut in greenhouse gas emissions of any US bank –
ten per cent by 2011.
