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Motley Fool on GS Sustain

In an August 3rd article titled "Do Gooders Do Well" on the Motley Fool website, Selena Maranjian noted our concerns about the GS Sustain Index and methodology, Goldman Sach's list of “companies from established industries, which have been selected by incorporating our proprietary Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) framework into long-run industry drivers and returns-based analysis and valuation in order to pinpoint structural improvement and sustainable competitive positioning.”

The article went on to say that "Of course, not every socially responsible investing advocate is anti-Goldman -- the Calvert Large Cap Growth Fund (CLCIX) recently had nearly 2% of its value invested in the company." (The stock is down 12.9% from 12/29/06 to 8/20/07. The S&P 500 is up 1.92% over the same period.)

For the record, we are not anti-Goldman. We correctly listed factual data concerning ethical and diversity lapses at the firm, and tied these to their work on SRI. As we stated, we applaud Goldman's incorporation of the ten principles of the UN Global Compact into an investment analysis framework and the firms’ tacit recognition of “socially responsible” investing.
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