Wall Street banks make sustainable finance a core part of strategy

– Goldman Sachs joins the investment banks that are betting big on ESG and sustainable finance.
– Green finance is a core part of Wall Street’s strategy.

This WSJ article says it all: “Green Finance Goes Mainstream, Lining Up Trillions Behind Global Energy Transition.” And here’s the intro from this Bloomberg article:

Goldman Sachs is just getting started in the fast-expanding world of sustainable finance. The New York-based lender plans to issue more environmental, social, and governance bonds on a regular basis as part of its plans to deploy $750 billion in sustainable financing, investing and advisory activity by 2030, according to Carey Halio, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Bank USA. It sold bonds aimed at financing environmentally and socially conscious projects for the first time on Wednesday.

“We expect to issue once every 12 to 18 months with respect to benchmark issuance and we have the flexibility to do other kinds of liabilities as well in addition to the benchmark bond,” said Halio in an interview Friday. “We think it will be a core part of our strategy going forward.”

This “ESG Today” article says that Bank of American aims to achieve $1.5 trillion in sustainable financing by 2030. And as noted in this article, BlackRock has amended a $4.4 billion credit facility, linking its performance on key sustainability metrics to the interest the company pays on the debt.