Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Climate School’s Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), is a lawyer who specializes in how public and private investment can help achieve environmental, social and economic goals. She and her team help governments, policymakers and the financial sector create new policies and practices to boost investments in sustainable development, particularly in developing countries.

“When most people think about sustainable investment, they think about individual corporate pledges or net-zero commitments,” says Sachs. “But in practice, they are both impractical and inadequate in the absence of a more coherent framework for sectoral transformations.”

Real progress requires collaborative investment planning, whether to decarbonize industry or transform food systems.

CCSI supports this work through evidence-based research that drives practical solutions and coordinated regional and sectoral transitions.

Learn more about Sachs and her work on climate finance:

Columbia Climate School Launches First M.S. in Climate Finance Program in the United States

This video is part of the ongoing Science for the Planet explainer series about how Columbia Climate School scientists and scholars are trying to understand the effects of climate change and helping to contribute solutions.