Goldman Sachs makes enviro markets grants

London, 4 January: US investment bank Goldman Sachs' Center for Environmental Markets has awarded its first research grants, to fund programmes examining market-based solutions to climate change.

The grants – totalling $2.3 million – are to three US think-tanks, Resources for the Future (RFF), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Woods Hole Research Center.

The RFF grant is to support its climate and technology policy programme, which "seeks to advance economically sensible approaches to dealing with climate change … anticipating the adoption and implementation of federal controls on greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions," the bank said in a statement.

The grant to the WRI will fund a two-year project to analyse the viability of technologies designed to reduce GHG emissions in the US and elsewhere, including coal gasification, biofuels, renewable power, and carbon capture and storage. It is to assess financial and market barriers to the deployment of each technology.

Meanwhile, the Woods Hole grant will support a three-year project to examine how to value forest ecosystems and analyse economic alternatives to logging rainforests.

"These grants address critical climate change challenges and provide opportunities to design a road map for policy-makers on a carbon emissions regulatory framework that will include a business perspective; examine the range of alternative energy solutions; and harness market forces to better understand the value of ecosystems," said Mark Tercek, managing director and head of the Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets.

The establishment of the centre was announced at the end of 2005, when Goldman Sachs introduced its environmental policy. Rather than carry out its own research, it will support independent research into public policy for establishing markets around climate change, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services.