Sustainability Report 2021 Climate Transition | Mobilizing Capital Mobilizing Capital Differentiated Insights and Capabilities We leverage proprietary insights and intelligence from our Global Investment Research (GIR) group to drive performance for our clients as they navigate the climate transition. By leveraging our industry-leading research and analysis, our clients are better equipped to make decisions that drive results. GS SUSTAIN Formed in 2007, the GS SUSTAIN team provides thought-leading research, data tools, and analysis that equip investors, companies, and other stakeholders with resources to understand how innovation, regulation, and implementation of ESG factors influence investment outcomes and broader capital flows. Through GS SUSTAIN, our Global Investment Research group has been at the forefront of bringing greater investor attention to the importance of ESG factors as a way of understanding how companies are managing 21st-century business risks. GS SUSTAIN published a thematic outlook for investing as ESG focus shifts “From Aspiration to Action.” GS SUSTAIN provides a mosaic-based approach to assessing ESG under five principal areas: Governance, Operational Environmental and Social Performance, Product Alignment, Controversies, and ESG Fund Holdings. By analyzing data from ESG data providers and GIR equity analysts, the GS SUSTAIN team has identified what it believes to be the most relevant metrics through which to evaluate ESG engagement for more than 7,000 companies. Many of these metrics have been externalized via API so that clients can now analyze their portfolios through GS SUSTAIN’s ESG lenses. In addition, GS SUSTAIN’s offering now includes an assessment of how these companies align with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Taxonomy, which provides clients with further insight into potential revenue eligibility or alignment. CLIMATE TRANSITION To transition to a low-carbon economy, an estimated $100 trillion to $150 trillion¹ in capital will be required to decarbonize the hardest-to-abate sectors over the next three decades. To support this work, we tap research and analytics tools and teams from across the firm to inform our decisions and our approach to engaging with clients. We also create new products and services across a full range of asset classes to provide differentiated, performance- driven strategies that fit each client’s needs. GIR expects that Green Capex will be the dominant driver of global infrastructure over the next decade, with $6 trillion of investment needed annually to decarbonize the world, address water needs, and shore up transportation and other critical systems. GS SUSTAIN’s 2021 publication, Green Capex: Making Infrastructure Happen , addresses the products and technologies that need investment, what is on track, where there is capacity for additional Green Capex among publicly traded companies, sectors where Green Capex is needed more urgently to help alleviate future supply-chain bottlenecks, and how companies investing in Green Capex have received support from equity markets. 33 33 1—Global Financial Markets Association and Boston Consulting Group: “Climate Finance Markets and the Real Economy ,” December 2020. In concert with the rest of the firm, GS SUSTAIN led our 2021 Global Sustainability Forum, attended virtually by more than 1,000 clients.