About Us

CCSI’s work proceeds from a conviction that the world needs to mobilize trillions of dollars in new investment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and accelerate the energy transition. Conventional approaches and entrenched paradigms are falling short, and we have no time left to lose. We believe that ambition is just as important as pragmatism, and that truly sustainable solutions need to be just and equitable.

With this in mind, we work to identify and realize new pathways to progress for governments, financial institutions, and global businesses. Our work emphasizes the need to reshape policies, laws and private sector approaches through a sophisticated engagement with complex political, economic and regulatory systems. At the same time, we also address the practical challenges facing individual governments and partners who want to chart new pathways to progress. 

We are a joint center of the Law and Climate Schools at Columbia University, and we draw on the expertise of the faculty in business, and engineering, among others. Our own team incorporates a diverse range of regional, legal, thematic, and sectoral expertise. We draw on that entire spectrum to anticipate and stay ahead of emerging trends and challenges, and to approach our research and engagements holistically, embracing and engaging with complex systems. We take an iterative approach that combines rigorous research with technical support and training programs that help partners translate vision into action. For example:

• We demonstrate the need for fundamental changes to international investment law regimes that prioritize investor protection over the needs of societies. We also help individual governments and civil society actors find creative ways forward that speak to their own priorities and practical constraints.

• Our research shows that mobilizing the financing needed for the energy transition and sustainable development requires public sector leadership, including urgent reforms of the global financial architecture. We also partner with investors to develop and model approaches informed by a better paradigm of impact and more useful metrics.

• We provide training and technical support to NGOs, governments and companies to help them ensure investments are sustainable and rights-respecting. We use the lessons learned from these practical engagements to inform research on best practices and the need for big-picture change.

• Our research maps out the types and scale of investment needed to rapidly advance a just energy transition, including sectoral transformations of key sectors and advanced circularity policies. We also convene dialogues with policymakers, experts and activists to help navigate the practical and political obstacles to advancing that agenda.

Difficult tensions abound, but these cannot be reasons for inaction. Our work is rooted in the conviction that we can and must mobilize tremendous new financial flows while at the same time protecting impacted people and ecosystems from harm.

We support and create new opportunities for traditionally underrepresented stakeholders to influence investment policy, decision-making, and governance. For example, this includes spaces for investment-affected communities and their allies, as well as for citizens and officials from lower income countries.

We apply a politically sensitive approach across our work. This builds on our early leadership in integrating a political lens into practice through the work of the Executive Session on the Politics of Extractive Industries.