Sarah Haley Knowles

Dr. Sarah Haley Knowles is a sustainability strategist and social scientist with more than 15 years of experience designing and managing environmental and social risk programs for large multinational corporations and coordinating the development, testing, and enabling of global sustainability and social impact initiatives. She has a passion for evolving public policy and corporate strategy to assign value to sustainable, equitable, and inclusive economic activities measured by both financial and nonfinancial performance at the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. Her research explores how environmental and social issues intersect and compound to create complex adverse impacts for families, communities, and economies through the lens of environmental, social, and economic prosperity and long-term viability.

Sarah holds a MBA from Drake University, a PhD in public policy from the University of North Carolina, and several professional certifications in climate change, sustainability accounting, resilient communities, and related risk, regulation, and industry standards. She has published multiple papers on sustainable finance, environmental resiliency, and other business-related sustainability topics with her first book on sustainable economics scheduled for publication in December 2025 by Palgrave Macmillan. Sarah resides in Northern Virginia where she enjoys gardening, beekeeping, hiking, teaching, and spending time with her foster children, English bulldogs, and African Gray parrot. A staunch advocate for business as a force for good, she continues to help companies evolve traditional shareholder-primacy models towards a more resilient and sustainable multi-stakeholder approach to corporate engagement, decision-making, and governance.