Sam Lacey

Sam leads The Biodiversity Consultancy's work for the finance sector and environmental markets, including carbon and biodiversity credits. She draws upon her background as a highly experienced sustainability and responsible investment leader with over 16 years of experience in sustainable investment working with institutional investors and private equity.

She is a seasoned advisor who has actively contributed to global multistakeholder initiatives in sustainable agriculture, land, labour rights and impact metrics, from guiding implementation on the ground to setting global standards and metrics. 

Former Business Development Director at NatureMetrics, Sam oversaw the establishment of the company’s service offering to the financial, agricultural, conservation and nature-based solutions sectors, actively engaging with emerging biodiversity credit standards and building a diverse client base across banking, development finance, impact investment, nature-based solutions and agriculture. Before that, Sam spent 11 years at CDC Group, leading the management of ESG for CDC’s private equity funds investments across a range of sectors, managing ESG for direct investments in agriculture and forestry and developing world-leading training materials on ESG management in private equity.  

She has led research into the role of cooperative businesses in development and natural resource management in Sub-Saharan Africa and managed a major project to establish Fairtrade tea co-operatives in Kenya. Early in her career she co-developed Co-operative Asset Management’s ESG rating system, which formed the basis of the Guardian’s Good Companies Guide. 

Sam has been a Specialist Observer to Board ESG Committees of various companies and served on the Executive Committee of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil. She studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and her PhD was in the biodegradation of soil pollution from Imperial College London and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford.