Lisa Sachs

Director

Lisa Sachs is the Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment. Since joining CCSI in 2008, she established and now oversees CCSI’s robust research portfolio in its cross-cutting areas of expertise, and has overseen advisory work in Chile, Guinea, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Paraguay, Tanzania and Timor-Leste, among other countries. She teaches a masters seminar at Columbia Law School and Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs on Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development, and lectures at Externado University in Colombia on International Investment Law. She has served on World Economic Forum Global Future Councils on International Governance and on Mining & Metals, and is a co-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s thematic group on the Good Governance of Extractive and Land Resources. She is a 2020-2021 Senior Fellow of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, and sits on several advisory boards, including of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights and SDGAcademy. Before joining CCSI, she worked at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and at Amnesty USA, in both cases on shareholder engagement. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University, and earned her Juris Doctor and a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, where she was a James Kent Scholar and recipient of the Parker School Certificate in International and Comparative Law.

Selected Publications

• Environmental Injustice: How Treaties Undermine the Right to a Healthy Environment, 2019-11-13
• Il Contributo Delle Compagnie Oil & Gas Nel Raggiungimento Degli Obiettivi Energetici E Climatici (How Oil and Gas Companies Can Help Meet the Global Goals on Energy and Climate Change), 2017-03-28
• TransCanada Lawsuit Highlights Need to Scuttle TPP, 2016-07
• Sustainable Development Goals: How Can the Mining Sector Contribute?, 2016-03-29
• A Silver Lining? Impact of Commodity Price Fall on Good Governance in Sierra Leone, 2016-03-24
• The Real Danger in TPP, 2016-02-19
• The Outsized Costs of Investor–State Dispute Settlement, 2016-02
• TPP Would Let Foreign Investors Bypass the Canadian Public Interest, 2015-11-25
• Next Generation Treaty - India’s New Model BIT Makes it Clear that its Goal is to Accomplish More than Investor Protection, 2015-11-12
• Wrong Direction on Climate, Trade and Development, 2015-06-22
• Resource Resilience: How to Break the Commodities Cycle, 2015-05-26
• Why Fast Track Is a Dangerous Gift to Corporate Lobbies, 2015-05-19
• Not So Fast, 2015-05-12
• Eyes Wide Shut On ISDS, 2015-04-22
• The Responsible Investor’s Guide to Climate Change, 2015-01-29
• Toward Win-Win Sustainable Development, 2014-11-18
• Mining Contracts: How to Read and Understand Them, 2013-12
• On Solid Ground: Toward Effective Resource-Based Development, 2013-08-06
• Great Debate: Mining in Latin America, 2013-04-25
• Ask the Experts: Mining, 2013-01
• Devil in the Bidding Detail, op. ed., 2012-09-28
• Openness in Extraction, op. ed., 2012-06-01
• Wider role for our miners in Africa, 2011-08-31
• FDI Perspectives: Issues in International Investment, 2011-01