At Goldman Sachs, Sustainability Means The Future, Now

Here's my message to our shareholders on the release of Goldman Sachs' 2020 Sustainability Report, including our first-ever People Strategy Report: https://click.gs.com/pu56

Early in 2020, it wasn’t clear whether the momentum behind sustainability would last. In December 2019, we announced our 10-year target of $750 billion in financing, investing and advisory activity focused on our two priorities of climate transition and inclusive growth. The response was overwhelmingly positive. But then COVID-19 hit, markets plummeted and concerns grew that sustainability would lose steam.

But, instead of slowing down, it actually sped up. A record of $732 billion in sustainable debt was issued in 2020, and for our part, Goldman Sachs achieved $156 billion in sustainable-finance activity — more than a fifth of our goal. Now, as more and more of our clients work with us to meet their decarbonization goals, we can say definitively that sustainability is not an offshoot of our business; it is our business.

That being said, we’ve still got a long way to go. In March 2021, we announced a commitment to align our financing activities with a net-zero-by-2050 pathway. We’ve also set a medium-term goal to achieve net-zero emissions in our operations and supply chain by 2030. In addition, we’re working to set more near-term, interim-business goals and further integrate climate-risk considerations into how we do business.

And, because we cannot possibly confront the challenges of climate change and structural inequity on our own, we’ve gone beyond our commercial work to partner with our peers and other organizations to effect real change. For instance, we’re working with the Bloomberg-sponsored Climate Finance Leadership Initiative to help attract more private capital to sustainable infrastructure projects in emerging markets.

Another example is our latest initiative, launched in partnership with Black women–led organizations: One Million Black Women. Over the next 10 years, we will invest $10 billion to address the disparities Black women face, with the goal of impacting the lives of at least 1 million Black women by 2030. We’ve created a new advisory council of prominent Black leaders to help guide our efforts, and the excitement we’ve seen during our listening tour with Black-led businesses and organizations has been incredible.

But, while sustainable finance is core to our purpose, we can’t deliver on that purpose without our people. With that in mind, we are releasing in tandem with this document our inaugural People Strategy Report. We are a talent-centric organization, and it is critical that we remain a leader and innovator in finding, developing and supporting talent, the same way we do in serving our clients.

As CEO, I believe nothing is more important than our people’s well-being. Their professional growth adds to the success of the firm. So we’ve developed a strategy that rests on three pillars spanning the breadth of a career at Goldman Sachs: attracting talent; supporting our people and sustaining our culture; and broadening our impact. Our Global Head of Human Capital Management, Bentley de Beyer, is responsible for ensuring that this strategy is fully aligned with our larger strategic goals.

Within those three pillars, we see many opportunities for further modernization, but running through them all is a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s vital to our business that we allow all our people to bring their authentic selves to the office and that our firm reflects the communities in which we live and work.

And, as this year’s report explains, we’ve made good progress on our aspirational diversity and inclusion goals. In our 2020 campus analyst class in the Americas, we achieved an important first: 55 percent were women. We set additional goals for retaining and promoting talent at the vice-president level. And our most recent partner and managing director classes were the most diverse in our firm’s history. There’s still a long road ahead, but I will continue to make this effort a personal priority.

So we’re well-positioned for 2021, and that’s due in no small part to our people’s exceptional performance in 2020. I was truly amazed by their dedication and resilience. And now, as life after the pandemic comes into view, we will bring with us all the lessons we’ve learned. We know our people do their best when they can come together to work, innovate and thrive. But we must also continue to give them the flexibility they need to manage both their work and their personal lives. We’re committed to striking the right balance and continuing to listen to our people, at all levels, so we can support them in what is still a rapidly changing environment. After all, attracting, developing and supporting our talent is ultimately how we achieve our purpose as a firm: to advance sustainable economic growth and financial opportunity.

The year 2020 had its fair share of twists and turns, but in the end it proved that we’re on the right course. To provide strong, long-term returns for our shareholders we must advance sustainable and inclusive long-term growth. And as our progress this year showed, our people are more than ready to meet the task.