
Todd Cort
Senior Lecturer in Sustainability; Faculty Director of Sustainability Program, MBA for Executives; Faculty Co-Director, Yale Center for Business and the Environment
Dr. Cort teaches and researches in corporate sustainability and sustainable finance. His focus is on financially material environmental and social risks to companies and investment portfolios. This includes applied research on financial models for corporations and asset managers to price environmental and social risks and account for these risks on their balance sheet and asset planning strategies. His work spans sustainability metrics, associated regulations, strategic and legal risk, intangible value assessment and portfolio construction. His educational background includes finance, engineering, environmental chemistry and biochemistry.
Dr. Cort holds a Professional Engineers License in California and a Diploma from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. He has a courtesy appointment at the Yale School of the Environment and is affiliated faculty with the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. He serves as Faculty Co-Director for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) and the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (YISF). He serves on a variety of advisory and management boards for corporations and venture capital funds including the PRIME Coalition and The Good Science Fund. He also volunteers on the Board of Directors for Save the Sound, a regional environmental non-profit serving communities around Long Island Sound.
Education
- PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2000
- MS, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1997
- BS, University of California, San Diego, 1993
Books
The Sustainable Corporation: A Legal and Business Centric Approach to (ESG)
Values at Work: The State of ESG Investing
Articles
Disclosure of Corporate Risk from Socio-Economic Inequality
The Evolving Climate Change Investing Strategies of Asset Owners
The Pragmatist’s Guide to ESG
Proposed SEC Climate Rules: Implications for the US Health Care Sector
Incentivizing the Direction of Multi-Capital Toward Inclusive Capitalism
Corporate Sustainability Metrics: What Investors Need but Don’t Get
Selected Media Coverage
Are Companies Abandoning Climate Action?, Yale Insights, April 4, 2025
Is Net-Zero Banking Dead?, Yale School of the Environment, January 13, 2025
Making Impact Investing Work for System Resilience—and Investor Profits, Yale Insights, December 18, 2024
Fiduciary Duty and Climate Change: Adding Value in the Longer Term, I by IMD, January 10, 2024
Achievements
“Up and Coming Thinkers”, Thinkers50 Radar, 2024
Teaching Award, MBA for Executives, Yale School of Management, 2018, 2020
F. K. Weyerhauser Memorial Fund Grant for Interdisciplinary Research in Business and the Environment to study Data-Driven Green Bond Standards, 2017
California Professional Civil Engineer, 2005
Lead Certified Sustainability Assurance Practitioner, 2012