New York, USA - The Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets has awarded its first research grants, totaling more than $2.3 million, to fund programs focused on finding market-based solutions to climate change.

The grants have been awarded to:

• Resources for the Future, for support over one year of its Climate and Technology Policy Program, which seeks to advance economically sensible approaches to dealing with climate change. Anticipating the adoption and implementation of federal controls on greenhouse gas emissions, the Program’s main project brings together companies from across the spectrum of the U.S. economy to inform a report to be written by RFF researchers on well-vetted, detailed policy options, important criteria for policy assessment, and well-articulated concerns from which effective federal policy might be crafted.
  

  
  

• World Resources Institute, for a two-year project to analyze the viability of the various technology options that could be deployed both in the U.S. and elsewhere to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify the world’s energy sources, including coal gasification, biofuels, renewable power, and carbon capture and storage, among others. The project will assess the financial and market barriers to deployment and scale-up of each technology, and the government policies and economies of scale needed for rapid deployment and delivery of the technologies to the market. The project will also include two in-depth reports analyzing the specific opportunities and issues associated with two of the most promising of the options developed.
  

  
  

• Woods Hole Research Center, for a three-year project to examine how to value forest ecosystems and analyze economic alternatives to cutting valuable rainforests. Competing demands on forests for land, soils, water, vegetation and carbon capture necessitate a method of valuing these ecosystems and their associated services in determining the true costs and benefits in making decisions on land usage. This project aims to understand how to value sustainable management of forest ecosystem resources and services at the local, national, and international levels.

“These grants address critical climate change challenges and provide opportunities to design a road map for policymakers 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,” says Mark Tercek, Managing Director and Head of the Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets.

The center was established when Goldman Sachs instituted its environmental policy framework and supports independent research, programs, and other market-based opportunities with partners in the academic and nongovernmental communities to develop public policy and other options for establishing effective and efficient markets around climate change, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. The center plans to disseminate the research and finding of these first three research grants through a combination of publications, conferences, strategic communications and targeted outreach to engage and educate clients and policy makers on climate change issues.