Noah Sachs: February's Sustainability Champion

February's Sustainability Champion is Noah Sachs. Noah has been at the University for 13 years and currently works as a Professor of Law and the Director of the Robert R. Merhige Jr. Center for Environmental Studies. Learn about his work with local and international environmental issues, as well as his involvement in environmental activism in our full interview with him below.

What sparked your interest in environmental law?
I've always been interested in the environment. One of my earliest environmental memories is from a summer camp in Massachusetts, where one of our counselors was an environmentalist and actually had us 10-year-olds do soil sampling to test for acid rain. Later, after college, I worked for an environmental group that worked on nuclear waste clean-up and radiation safety. By the time I got to Stanford for law school at age 24 I was sure I wanted to focus on environmental law. 
 
What are your areas of focus and what led you to them?
One of my focus areas is the regulation of toxic chemicals, and my interest in that grew out of a law review article I published as a law student about endocrine disrupting chemicals. Those are chemicals that can cause birth defects and cancer by mimicking human hormones. When I wrote that article, the science around these chemicals was still developing, so my article was one of the first about how the law could address that area of risk. I’ve worked on those issues for twenty years now. Next month, a report I wrote about toxic floodwaters will come out. There are a lot of toxic chemical storage sites in Hampton Roads and the James River watershed that are going to be impacted by sea level rise and flooding from storms as the climate changes. This report documents which industrial sites are vulnerable. 
 
My other big area of focus is climate change. I've written a lot about international negotiations on climate, like the Paris agreement, and how we can use energy efficiency policies to address climate change. 
 
What does an average work week look like for you?
One thing I love about this job is that there's a ton of variety and opportunities to get involved in local and regional issues. In a week, I might teach a class on air pollution and then go to a meeting downtown about the construction of a natural gas pipeline in Virginia. Then I may bring those two issues together in another class by discussing the proposed natural gas pipeline compressor station in Buckingham County, where there's an air pollution issue and an environmental justice issue. I would say about half of my time is teaching, and then on top of that there's research, keeping up with my field, and a ton of meetings. I'm on the Faculty Senate this year and that’s keeping me busy. 
 
I also direct the Merhige Center for Environmental Studies, which is a forum for bringing in leaders from the Mid-Atlantic states to talk with students and one another about environmental issues and cutting-edge topics like energy law, the Chesapeake Bay, and toxic air pollution. The Merhige Center has also hosted debates during the past two presidential elections between the Republican and Democratic candidates' environmental advisers. 
 
What's one professional experience that really impacted you recently?
Last year I spoke on the Paris Agreement at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon Law School. There were probably 1,000 attendees, a lot of them law students, and it was one of the biggest environmental law conferences I've ever seen. There were a lot of environmental activists there as well, and some of them had been arrested for civil disobedience around climate change. Usually I'm at a lot of academic conferences, but it was powerful to hear speeches from people fighting for environmental justice in the streets. 
 
How does sustainability and your understanding of environmental issues impact your life outside of the workplace?
I have really loved getting to know the environmental community in Virginia and exploring the natural beauty of this state. I've come to see that making a difference for the environment is as much about political pressure as it is about studies and reports and information. One early mentor told me that to move political institutions, you need expertise on the inside and pressure from the public on the outside.  Because of my interest in environmental issues, I go to a lot of protests and marches about things like climate change and pipelines. I've also been active on the coal ash issue as people try to figure out what to do with coal ash disposal pits here in Virginia. Sustainability also impacts how I live: like what I buy at the store, what I choose to eat, and how I spend my money. On top of that, it has affected how I raise my two kids. Now as teenagers, they're participating in environmental activism as well. 
 
How do your students get involved in local environmental law issues?
The main way our students get involved is through externships, which are courses where they get credit to work for places like the state environmental agency, the Southern Environmental Law Center, or the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Aside from externships, I also arrange field trips for some of my classes. A couple years ago, I took students to see the new on-campus solar array at the Weinstein Center. I also arranged a visit to the biggest power plant in the region over in Chesterfield. We toured the plant and it was eye-opening to see how air pollution laws can affect a facility. Students were amazed to see how big and complicated the air pollution control equipment was, and I explained that Dominion installed all that equipment pursuant to a settlement agreement after Dominion was sued by the federal government. 
 
What do you want your students to walk away from your classes understanding about environmental law?
To be a really impactful and significant environmental lawyer, you've got to be a good lawyer first. I want to encourage my students to have a commitment to the environment, and I want my students to win. That means their briefs need to be persuasive, their writing must be excellent, they have to have the proper footnotes and citations, the need to know civil procedure, and they have to know the ins and outs of environmental law. I think one of the things we're really good at here at the law school is giving our students a broad base of training to be great lawyers.